Narrative Lyric 



Edward Lucas Whit 




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Edward Lucas \y\\\\t 




G. p. PUTNAH'S SONS 

New York and London 

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1908 



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Copyright, iqo8 

BY 

EDWARD LUCAS WHITE 



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THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 

TO 

HIM WHO APPROVED 



CONTENTS. 








PAGE 


Lucifer .... 








I 


Rhampsinitos 








8 


Talith .... 








21 


Eglon and Ehud 








26 


Shamgar 








36 


The Levite. 








46 


Benaiah 








49 


Deioces 








52 


The Titan . 








55 


The Last Bowstrings 








. 63 


Kranae 








. 68 


The Retribution 








. 78 


Vertumna . 








86 


The Measure of the Sword 






. 95 


Done For . 


. 






• 113 



vi Contents 



PAGE 



Marcabrun . . . . . .120 

Certainty ....... 124 

The Emperor ...... 126 

The Ghoula ...... 129 



Acknowledgments are due Messrs. Hoqghton, Mifflin and 
Company for permission to reprint "The Last Bowstrings" and 
"Benaiah," which were published in the Atlantic Monthly for May, 
1891 and April, 1892. 



NARRATIVE LYRICS 



LUCIFER. 

THERE is a tale that, when, around the throne 
Of Allah in vast circles blazed and shone 
The shields of rebel angels, Almahar, 
The friend of Lucifer, had flown afar 
Upon a mission to some shadowy clime 
Beyond the reach of the resounding chime 
Of the strong chorus of the choiring spheres; 
Where not one spirit in the silence hears 
Even the whirr of the lone star that swings 
On the dim border of their circling rings; 
Where all things are not found to know or tell 
Like anything in earth or heaven or hell. 

While he upon his errand passed the bound 

Of the pale confines where all light and sound 

Fade into that which is not day nor night, 

Where is no ghost of darkness or of light. 

His friend, on fire with immortal pride, 

Because the ether where his pinions plied 

Was the same ether which all angels breathed; 

Because the light wherewith his brows were wreathed 



2 Lvicifer 

As each archangel's halo of them all 

Shone, and not brighter; since the rise and fall 

Of his strong purple wings diffused and shed 

Such perfume as all angel plumage fed, 

No other and no sweeter; since the tones 

Of his gold voice, such as each angel owns, 

Not stronger and not clearer, like a sword 

Clove heaven through with praises of the Lord; 

Because he was not any other thing 

Than what he was, rose up against the King, 

Hating the very heaven that he trod 

Because he was an angel and not God. 

After the lightnings of the Lord had burned 

Their pride, and all their strength to fear was turned, 

Above their heads, now haloless and bowed. 

The sentence hurtled, harsh as fire and loud: 

Into the kingdom of the nether world. 

Where Eblis rules, the rebels should be hurled, 

Cast out of heaven forever, now no more 

Angels, but demons among demons, soar 

They might not in the day, but in the dark 

In vain should strive, in vain should gaze and hark 

Unto the silence, and each one alone 

With his own memories might laugh or moan, 

But never sing and never smile again. 

And ever seek new memories in vain. 

For no new thought might ease or change the smart 

Where the old thoughts ate into each one's heart. 

When Almahar, his errand ended, came 

From Allah's presence, clothed with velvet flame 



LrXicifer 3 

His flight had kindled, missing Lucifer 

And all at once aware of a vague stir 

Deep in averted eyes, he asked at length. 

And Raphael, shuddering through all his strength. 

Answering his longing for his absent friend. 

Told him all things whatever to the end. 

The angel, with bowed face and loosened hair, 

Fled out of heaven, wandering anywhere 

Among the wildernesses of the stars 

Beyond the radiance of heaven's bars, 

Bewailing his lost friend. Between his hands 

The hot tears fell, like pearls or golden sands, 

And from his head his pale straight tresses streamed, 

And to a thousand worlds their shining seemed 

A portent of some woe unspeakable 

Lit from fires of a colder hell. 

And when he took his place among the choir 

Again, his face was changed as though by fire, 

And paler than is any restless ghost 

He sang, the saddest of the heavenly host. 

After a thousand ages, Almahar 

Passed through a region where there is one star 

Whose baleful light makes deaf the eyes and stuns. 

And a vast meadow, all aflower with suns, 

Is under it where it hangs in the dark. 

And there he paused and seemed to muse and 

hark. 
Pondering the loveliness beneath his feet. 
And when he raised his eyes, it was to greet 
The gaze of his lost friend who sat enthroned 
Upon the dark star where it swung and groaned. 



4 Lvicifer 

The silence boomed and thundered in their ears, 

And, their eyes brimming with eternal tears. 

Each felt his life flow backward at full tide, 

And speechlessness seemed with them to abide. 

Almahar broke the stillness, and his speech 

Was a hoarse whisper as though, out of reach, 

Beyond some gray horizon, moaned and roared 

The billows of an ocean grim, unshored, 

Salt with the bitternesses of the tears 

Of myriad nations shed through countless years. 

And the strained voice, charged with a multitude 

Of sympathies and yearnings unsubdued. 

Spoke much, and the words little, and he said, 

"You suffer, Lucifer." The other's head 

Quivered erect on his tense neck, his eyes 

Blazed with uncounted molten memories, 

His answer was a chill and bristling hiss 

Filling the hard unlovable abyss 

With writhing sighs: "Would I could make you feel 

The agonies, more sharp than fire or steel, 

That eat my heart out," Lucifer replied. 

"And yet there is no other one beside 

So fierce and fell as this, I cannot gain 

The power to make you share my rage and pain. 

No effort or device my thought conjures 

Can give my soul the power to hurt yours 

As I would hurt you had I but the power 

To fuse eternity into one hour. 

To mix in it the misery that dwells 

In all the caverns of the farthest hells 

And set this wave of deathless fire to roll 

Forth in a torrent and engulf your soul 



Lucifer 

And smother it forever!" When amaze 

And questionings lit up the other's gaze, 

He burst out once again: "Can you not see 

What tortures, and has always tortured me? 

The universe cries out with one accord, 

'He fell because his heart could brook no lord.' 

And what would it avail to me that I 

Should face them all and give their throats the lie? 

It may be true — all beings know this smart — 

Not even Satan can read Satan's heart. 

To you I swear I did and could obey 

As all the angels, easily as they. 

But heaven was unto me a vaster hell — 

To know forever, and to know too well. 

That all the hierarchies of the blest 

Looked up to me as purest, noblest, best. 

As perfect in all thoughts and in each deed, 

Sterling at heart and certain to succeed. 

While I could see, along with no surprise, 

My valuation writ in Allah's eyes. 

You I had loved, you loved me well of old, 

But how could any love or friendship hold, 

When I beheld grow and increase in you, 

Who knew my life and mind and heart all through. 

The like perception of my real unworth ? 

I saw it, and that was my hatred's birth. 

Torture enough it was to me that I 

Saw every angel halt to let me by. 

And knew myself unworthy all the while ; 

Worse, what I saw well hid in Allah's smile, 

And worst that you, my confidant and friend. 

Should know me as I was, and still pretend 



6 Lxjcifer 

To have for me your old unreined esteem; 

Could read me and be willing yet to seem 

Full of your old bright gladness in my sight; 

Appear to give me what had been my right — 

And was no more; conserve the fair outside 

Which you had showed me trusted and untried, 

And which you knew I never did deserve. 

And well I knew no speech of mine would serve, 

If I had spoken. Still your loyalty 

Would say that you had seen no change in me, 

That you loved me as truly as of old, 

And knew my tinselled dross for very gold, 

I knew your fancies you almost believed, 

And by your hopes of me were half deceived. 

And to my pride this was the keenest smart, 

That sympathy for me was in your heart, 

A longing that I might be as I seemed, 

And the black insult that you ever dreamed 

I might become so through your help and love; 

This was my crowning wrong, all else above. 

That you were able to admit at all 

Compassion for my weakness and my fall. 

Help — which I would not brook from the Most High — 

From you! presuming on our friendship's tie! 

Since Allah knew, why should he still forbear? 

He felt compassion too! I was his care! 

'T was then I turned my force of mind and limb 

To make impossible for you or him 

Aid or compassion. Truly I might be 

Damned, but I still should stand self-poised and free, 

No ward for help or satellite for gain, 

But mine own sovereign, bearing mine own pain. 



Lvicifer 

Him I have thwarted. Sympathy nor ruth 

Can ever touch his chill and righteous truth. 

But you are gentle still. Now do you know 

Why hatred of you still in me must grow ? 

Hate I can face, and feel my pulses thrill 

With hate no hate can master or can kill, 

But yet I feel one hate all hates above 

At the unmanning knowledge of your love, 

And twenty-fold I hate you that you dare 

Still to insult with pity my despair." 

He ceased, and hatred filled his eyes and ears 

To realize the angel's gaze and tears. 

And Almahar in gentleness replied: 

"In very deed my love has never died, 

And it will live forever as it ought, 

The rnore because I find you, whom I thought 

A demon among demons since your fall, 

Are still a fallen angel, after all." 



RHAMPSINITOS. 

[XCTO. 8c TavTa cXeyov tovtov tov /?a(riXea ^wov Kara^rjvaL 
e's TOV ol 'EiXXrjve'i di'Sj^v vofii^ovcrt efvat, kukcWl avyKv/Scvciv 
Trj Ayj/MTjTpi., Koi TO, fxXv VLKav avTY^v TO, Se icrcrovaOaL vir avTrj<;, 
Kat fj.iv iraXiv avco airiKcadaL Bwpov c^ovTa Trap aJr^s ^ei- 
pojuaKTpov ■)(pva'€ov 

Herodotus, ii., 122. 

I 

AFTER dark the chariot was harnessed, 
And the King came through a hidden postern, 
Mounted in the boskage of his gardens, 
And in silence through a distant gateway, 
Void of ornament and giving egress 
Into a walled lane, the car was driven. 
Slowly through the city, choosing byways, 
The four horses plodded ; when the houses 
All were left behind, the lash laid on them 
Hurled them like winged eagles toward the desert. 
Through the low haze the uneasy moonlight 
Fell obliquely on a speeding shadow 
Tipped with silver manes, a soundless flurry 
Of gilt hoofs, white spokes, and whirring tires 
With a surf of brown-red sand about it 
In cascades of dust, and all behind it 
Were unrolled two narrow, inky furrows. 



RHampsinitos 

As the shadow skimmed the sun-baked surface 
Toward the caverned rock-hill-range of Ammon. 
There one shape with crowned and crested helmet 
Vanished in a cleft of rock. Outside it 
Three remained, one helmeted and crested, 
Two bareheaded, by the steaming horses. 



II 



And when the grooms had loosed the sweating team 

And picketed them safely by the rocks, 

In the deep shadow, and had given each 

An armful of the fodder they had brought; 

And, when they cooled, had poured for each a drink 

Of water from the goat-skin water-bag 

Into the leathern bucket; while the beasts 

Crunched on contentedly, they greased the hubs. 

So they would run for certain without creaking; 

They wiped the harness dry and hung it up 

Along the railing of the tilted car. 

And then the grooms stood, drank again and puffed. 

And mopped their faces well, and drank once more. 

And the tall officer of the King's guards. 

He who had driven, took his helmet off 

And wiped his lordly forehead, staring out 

Over the desert at the sinking moon. 

And then the three sat down upon their cloaks 

And leaned against the rocks and drank more wine. 

And the grooms wondered if that off-wheel spoke 

Was sprung as badly as it looked to be; 

Discussed the left-hand trace-horse's sore mouth ; 

Wished he had a new cover on his bit. 



lo RHampsinitos 

And said the old skin-cover was too hard — 

It chafed his mouth, they 'd told the head-groom so. 

And as the other was not mellowed yet 

With drinking, but had grown more dignified, 

As the first three drinks usually made him, 

He only listened to them, broad awake. 



Ill 



Rhampsinitos, through the silent cavern, 

Followed fast a guide whose treads were noiseless, 

And whose eyes gave out the only torch-rays 

That lit up the monarch's ringing footsteps. 

And the guide went first. His face was hidden 

From the mortal following behind him. 

Yet if he had seen it every moment 

He would not have dreaded the eye-sockets, 

Empty and aflame and phosphorescent. 

For his courage was a kingly courage. 

And the pathway, sharply sloping downwards, 

Led him finally unto a portal 

Carved with carvings beautiful and sombre. 

And his guide there turned aside and vanished. 

After a brief space of utter darkness. 

The doors opened with a hingeless silence. 

Rhampsinitos entered a thick-columned 

Lintelled hall, so vast the roof was hidden, 

Not by darkness, but by very distance. 

For, although the myriads of braziers, 

Shed a light lead-colored, slow, and heavy, 

Nothing in the place was clothed in shadow. 

The King strode between the throngs of pillars ; 



RHampsinitos ii 

Paced the hall's length on the middle pavement; 

Paused at the first step before the throne-place; 

Stood and gazed upon the Queen who sat there; 

Saw her eyes, the eyes of great Demeter, 

The still eyes of the pale Queen of Hades, 

She who rules all men's hearts forever 

After they are dead and have forgotten 

All the queens of love and earthly hours, 

And remember her alone and love her, 

With a dead love that is most undying, 

As all lovers, fevered and exhausted, 

Love the death which makes them calm for always. 

And the King, who was a living lover. 

Knew that he would love her dead, and trembled. 

And he trembled while her eyes were on him. 

Then the Queen's great voice said: " Rhampsinitos, 

Since you are a mortal, not my lover. 

Since you come alive to gaze upon me 

Whom you will know in the long hereafter, 

Now, my guest, be seated here and tell me 

All the hope and yearning that is in you." 

And when he had told her all, she answered: 

" Dare you risk so much upon the chances? 

Dare you hope to win so much upon them? 

Be it even so, if so you wish it. 

You may go hence with the wealth of Hades 

And have won a life on earth forever; 

You may go hence even as you came here ; 

And you may depart a king no longer 

And a mortal with no life hereafter. 

That which is to be the dice will tell you." 

And they sat among the burning braziers. 



12 RKampsinitos 

In the vastness of the jewelled palace, 
With the leaden light upon their faces, 
Watched each other, threw the dice, and wagered. 



IV 



Pelteh, the groom, declared it was a shame 

The way the stable contracts fell that year. 

His cousin was a better harness-maker 

Than any in the capital, and yet, 

Although he had bid low, he did not get 

One single contract ; and the men who did 

Skimped their work shamelessly, and got full pay, 

All the awards were by rank favoritism. 

And the inspection was a perfect farce. 

So that the harness, although it was handsome. 

Wore out in no time, and its cleaning gave 

No end of trouble ; why, the very yoke 

They 'd used that night was absolutely botched, 

And it was stuffed with some cheap, worthless paddinj 

Unfit for any decent noble's stable. 

Much less the King's. The hostler said 't was true ; 

And, in the purchasing of feed, the like 

Was usual. The barley had been bought, 

By the connivance of the overseer. 

Of a rich cousin of the butcher's wife — 

Who was the overseer's friend, perhaps 

More than his friend. It was up to the samples; 

Yes, it was perfect barley, but the price 

Was most outrageous. As for the promotions. 

Not only in the stable-force, but also 

In all the household of the worthy King 



RKampsinitos 13 

Not one was for real merit. Wire-pulling 

And bribery and favor did it all. 

And here the other two chimed in, all three 

Talking at once of the quite grievous way 

Their talents had not gotten recognition, 

"Although, of course," the officer went on, 

"If the King knew, 't would all be managed right. 

No sort of blame attaches to the King, 

It would be treason even to hint that: 

It is his underlings that do him wrong 

And go against his orders:" and the others 

Gave an assent emphatic as 't was quick. 



V 



Silent was the Queen, the monarch silent, 
And monotonously from the dice-box 
Fell the dice, monotonously clicking, 
Till, unto the ears of Rhampsinitos 
It appeared as if the columns echoed 
Every click, however faint it sounded. 
And the flowing of his blood environed 
All his senses with a steady booming 
Like the flow of subterranean water. 
He had wagered all his mighty jewels. 
And the Queen the half of Hades' treasure, 
And the King had won. Upon the next throw 
He had won the whole of Hades' treasure. 
He had lost it, lost his own, his cattle. 
Lost his armies, lost his fleet, his kingdom, 
Wagered his own soul, won back his kingdom, 
Won his fleet, won back again his losses, 



14 RKampsimtos 

Won all Hades' treasure, staked it wholly 

On one throw against a life forever 

For himself on earth, a man and living. 

He had won it, and the Queen's great eyelids 

Gently brushed her pale cheeks with their lashes, 

For he did not sigh nor laugh nor triumph. 

" Is it all, and is it not sufficient? 

Is there anything beyond you wish for 

Rhampsinitos? Will you risk a wager 

Still, for anything, who have won thus much? 

If you wish to, speak, the time is passing." 

And the King, his cheeks aflush with triumph, 

Gripped the dice-box with his mighty fmgers, 

And his breath came hard, and he was silent. 

But her eyes still questioned, and he answered: 

"Yea, O Queen, and could I live forever. 

And alone, and loveless, and without her? 

Could I take delight in any living 

Even now, if I were always certain 

I must live on earth, when she had left it? 

But we two, we two, a life eternal 

Were but short for us in earth or heaven!" 

And the great Queen, laughing low, made answer: 

" Shall it not be so with men forever? 

You have planned and watched and fought and 

labored, 
You have hungered, suffered thirst and sickness, 
Mired thick your chariot- wheels with carnage : 
And, when you behold how great the task is 
That your soul is bent on, when the knowledge 
That a man's life is too short for triumph 
Even in a safe and ordered kingdom, — 



RKampsinitos 15 

Much too brief for stable foreign conquest — 

When this knowledge makes you well-nigh hopeless; 

And when, after you have won a lifetime 

Long as all the length of all the ages, 

Wherein you may fight, and scheme, and labor 

To make all the earth a larger Egypt, 

When your immortality is certain 

And you have a wealth no man can equal, 

All these prizes seem but baby baubles 

If you lack the smiling of one woman! 

Wager then, my stake is what you wish for." 

And the monarch staked his life eternal, 

Staked the life that he so much had longed for, 

Staked the life that he had won so hardly, 

And, his eyes aglow with hope and fervor, 

His lips parted in anticipation. 

Threw the dice, and leaned to hers to count them. 



VI 



It was past midnight now ; they all had slept 
And waked again, and talked, and dozed yet more. 
And then talked afterward. Pelteh went on: 
"It is n't that I do find fault with life; 
It seems, somehow, I can't express myself, 
Perhaps I lack the education for it. 
Maybe you know. Sir, what I want to say. 
And could express it. I can't get it out." 
The officer, much flattered, cleared his throat, 
And said: "I think I know just what you mean. 
I think you feel, as all of us must feel. 
How much the world has fallen off in flavor 



1 6 RKampsinitos 

Since the old times we like to hear about. 

We have no men like our old fighting heroes. 

War has become a trade. A modern soldier 

Is very little better than a clerk 

Engrossing documents in a law-office. 

We fight, but all the soldiers are machines 

Wholly controlled by their superiors. 

There is no room for heroism there, 

And if there is no heroism in war, 

Where in the world will you find any at all? 

All, great men and the rabble, poor and rich, 

Feel something like this. In the good old days 

Farming was an idyllic occupation, 

Full of romance and poetry, but now 

It is a trade like any other trade. 

Egypt was once a land of gods and heroes; 

Now we are just a herd of priests and nobles, 

Warriors, tradesmen, laborers, and beggars, 

Who, all alike, eat, sleep, and drink, and worship. 

And die, like cattle, unheroic deaths. 

The world is getting old and men degenerate; 

The nobles some go down and upstarts some. 

Out of the rabble, to fill up their places. 

It was not so of old, then every man 

Lived out his life in his own proper station, 

And found variety and spice in life; 

Now 'tis all changed." "I see," said Pelteh, sadly, 

Checking a full-fed yawn, "I understand you. 

In the old days I should have found a groomship 

A life full of delight : now it seems sordid 

And mean. And in the old days, too, you would 

Have found a captaincy far more delightful 



RKampsinitos i? 

Than a full generalship would seem to-day. 

The fault is not in either of us, only 

The times are to be blamed; they 're dull and tame." 

" Exactly so," replied the officer. 

And the lean hostler scratched his head and thought. 



VII 



Losing, winning, losing, and then winning, 

Still the dice, that mocked him, never gave him 

Mastery of an undying manhood. 

And a deathless love to make it blessed. 

And it seemed to him his lips and teeth were 

Now no more apart, but grown together 

Like the edges of a wound in healing. 

As he diced, he wondered could he utter 

Any speech again, or was the power, 

Of all utterance gone from him for always. 

The Queen's forehead, white above her eyebrows 

In the leaden light, he kept his eyes on, 

For he dared not meet her eyes directly. 

Then the leaden lights appeared to waver. 

To his fancy their flames seemed to rustle ; 

The thick sweat was chilly on his temples ; 

He threw many throws and won no longer. 

Then he said: "I have no more to wager!" 

And his own voice startled him with wonder. 

And the great, calm Queen replied unto him: 

"Is there no one on the earth who loves you 

With a love so great your ears have heard her 

Say her soul is yours alone, forever?" 

" Yea!" the King replied, his pulses roaring. 



i8 RKampsinitos 

"Wager, then, that soul," the Queen made answer, 

" Since it is your own, and you may use it 

As it pleases you, now and forever." 

Slowly and with awe he said: "I cannot!" 

" Then the earth will never more behold you 

After one more sunset," said Demeter, 

"And you have no life to live hereafter." 

And the great King answered her, unsobbing 

But his body nimib with fear and anguish, 

"I will stake it." And she made her wager. 

Thrice the King won, thrice again his losses 

Brought him to that last unwilling wager. 

Then his winnings followed fast each other 

Till he had won back his losses wholly, 

Won and lost again the wealth of Hades. 

Then the Queen, the gold dice in her fingers, 

Paused and listened, shook her head, and dropped them, 

Saying: "You must cease. The time is over. 

You must go back to your earth and kingdom. 

Nothing have you lost and have won nothing. 

Yet have tasted what no man has known of 

Living, save yourself. Behold I give you. 

For a token of your noble courage. 

This gold napkin, marvellously woven. 

Take it, and depart, and peace go with you." 

VIII 

Toward morn the men, who dared not keep asleep. 
And were not able to keep broad awake, 
Talked gossip between naps, and groomed the horses ; 
Ate the remaining lunch that they had brought, 



RHampsinitos 19 

And drank the last of their small stock of wine. 
And after much conjecture of one scandal — 
Which was the talk of all the court that month — 
As they felt quite good friends by now, they came 
To guessing their lord's nocturnal errand, 
And who the lady was he came to meet, 
And how she got there. And the officer 
Observed: "As I remarked a short while back, 
Our days are nothing if not commonplace. 
The King of the most mighty of all nations, 
With a good wife he ought to love, can fand. 
In spite of all his state-craft and war-levies. 
No better way to pass his time than this. 
To meet some good man's worthless wife in secret. 
Could there be anything more unromantic, 
Matter-of-fact, and humdrum than all this? 
And what must be the state of all the nation, 
If the King, even, cannot be a hero 
Not because he 's himself and not a hero, 
But because modern times are unheroic. 
He would not seem a hero if he were one." 



IX 



All the stars had vanished, save to westward 
Where one hung above the purple desert. 
Under it the haze was dun and reddish. 
And the nearer sand was brown and even. 
Southwardly the hills arose behind them. 
And to the northward other hills, their fellows. 
Loomed disruptedly, blue, gray, and rosy. 
Eastward the horizon, steely-colored, 



20 RKampsinitos 

Sundered the clear, hueless sky above it 
From the yellow desert, waxing brighter. 
The vast river, flowing in its hollow, 
Was beyond the reach of any vision : 
From beyond it still the daylight flooded 
Into the clear air, with an increasing 
Volume and an ever quickening outpour. 
As the sun arose, the watchers turned them. 
And, from out the dim, sand-paven cavern, 
Rhampsinitos staggered, racked and shaken, 
With blue lips and hollow cheeks and ashen. 
Clutching in his hands a royal napkin 
Wrought of cloth of gold, and strangely woven. 
Though his eyes were terrorless and thoughtful 
They beheld as a strange, novel vision 
The cool brilliance of the morning sunlight. 



TALITH. 

(Trochaic Trimeters.) 

WHEN a king or queen or prince had died in Egypt, 
Or when death had taken any royal being, 
After hope was gone and Egypt's loss was certain 
Then the servants of the dead enrobed the body 
In the costliest and loveliest adornments; 
Lavished on it all the stuffs that earth afforded 
The most precious; all the gems of the regalia; 
Placed it on a catafalque of sable velvet 
Tufted over with amazing sombre jewels; 
And it lay until the stroke of the next midnight, 
'Mid the flickering of perfume-laden cressets, 
In the chilly mourning-chapel of the palace. 
Then the washers of the dead arrived to claim it, 
And disrobed it of all decking and possessions, 
And 't was washed and counted with unroyal corpses. 
And, thereafter, cunning journeymen embalmed it 
Till, inside its triple gilded cedarn coffins, 
It was laid within the rock-tombs of the rulers. 

In the chapel all the cressets were on fire. 
But the mourners all save one had long departed. 
For the Queen of Rhampsinitos, King of Egypt, 
Lay there silent, and he watched hisdead and sorrowed. 



2 2 TalitH 

He beheld the fretted crown, how it became her; 
How her forehead was like wax against the metal ; 
How the glossy single braid of raven tresses 
Showed behind her tiny ear-shell, white and waxen; 
How her throat was smothered in the heaps of jewels ; 
How the silk and fine embroidered robe was lifted 
By her breasts, like carven blocks or desert boulders; 
How there was not any flowing in her outline, 
But the form was suddenly a thing eternal 
As the end of all her whims and veering fancies, 
Which had always kept him glad with new perfections. 
And he marked the fringe of silk and twisted bullion, 
And the queenly little feet that showed below it ; 
And it startled him to see them pink no longer, 
But as gray as a cold sunset's final ashes. 
In the growing night he paced the chilly chapel 
And his thoughts were like an army in a sand-storm. 
When there is not any man dare flee, nor any 
Dare advance, or dare retreat or plan to face it. 
He bethought him how the night was sweeping onward, 
How the hours wherein he might do her honor 
Were to pass, and she be one of Egypt's corpses, 
And a number in their designating numbers, 
But, till in her coffin — never to be opened. 
Nor be added to nor altered nor amended — 
She would be a reachless wish, a nameless absence 
And he blamed himself that all his mighty treasures 
Were not heaped upon the floor for her to rest on. 
And he counted all the jewels there about her. 
Lest some one had been omitted and forgotten. 
But there was not one of all that he beheld not. 
Then he thought how, in his privatest of treasures, 



TalitK 23 

Lay the napkin he had won at dice in Hades 
When he played there with the Queen of the departed, 
And had risked and lost his soul, and had rewon it. 
And he passed the hanging curtains of the portal ; 
Passed the guards that stood as mute as tongueless 

statues ; 
Took the napkin from the casket in his vaulted 
Crypt that no man save himself might ever enter ; 
And repaced the corridors and moonlit porches 
To the chapel, empty ever since he left it. 
For he felt this was the dearest of his treasures 
And most hardly won of all that he had gathered. 
And he bore it to her that she might be honored 
With all honor that the King could spend or lavish. 
And he laid it on the catafalque beside her. 
For he felt his heart was weakening within him. 
And he thought: "I could not watch the washers 

strip her 
As the law is which the gods will have accomplished." 
Therefore he resolved to spread the precious napkin 
For a face-cloth on her face when last he kissed it, 
And depart and meet his lonely life and joyless 
Duty to his subject lands till death should take him. 
And he marvelled at her slender girlish fingers 
Loaded now with ancient rings of countless value; 
And he knew not was this grief or was it stupor, 
For he felt a dull and heavy self-efEacement. 
Then the harsh horn at the gateway of the palace 
Grated out a dry and rasping note of warning, 
And he knew the washers of the dead were coming, 
Though afar off in the miles of pillared palace. 
Then he kissed his lost love's lips, and laid the napkin 



24 TalitK 

On her face, and sobbed and rose with firm-set 

shoulders, 
For he knew his life was done except his duties. 

But he had not gone a pace before he halted, 

Cried a great cry to the tapestries and panels 

Of the gilded and nail-studded level ceiling, 

For he thought he heard her voice, and feared and 

trembled. 
Then he turned, and she was striving with her 

wrappings. 
And he gasped and wept and laughed and rent the 

priceless 
Webs of silk and chains of gold and massive jewels, 
For he saw he was not mad, that she was living. 
And her arms were round his neck, and to his kisses 
She responded with the fervor of her girlhood. 
And they clung together silently, and shivered. 
Then she spoke, and in her throat her speaking 

fluttered : 
"O my King, my only love, my precious husband, 
I was dead and stood before the gate of Hades, 
And the guardians bade me enter in unburied, 
And the Queen received me on her throne of silver, 
And she told me dreadful Hades could not claim me 
Till the hours had gone by, until the midnight. 
For if Neith, who is the giver of all wisdom. 
Should be pleased to move your heart to use the 

napkin 
Which the Queen of Hades gave you when you left 

her, 
Then I might return again into my body. 



TalitK 25 

For it was for this she gave to you the token 
Which is magical to wake the dead it touches, 
Since she saw you loved me truly well and wholly, 
And she wished that I might live until fate took us 
Both together into night that has no morning." 
And they shuddered and rejoiced and clung together 
Till the Queen fell back again and gasped and fainted. 
Rhampsinitos tore the close gigantic curtains 
From the latticed southern window of the chapel, 
And the night- wind and the moonlight flooded inward. 
Then he broke the ropes of pearls and clasps of rubies 
That, encumbering her throat, restrained her 

breathing. 
And he scattered far her armlets, rings, and girdle, 
Loosing all the silken robes about her body 
Till the desert wind upon her brow and bosom 
Woke her, and she stirred and panted and recovered. 

When the washers of the dead and guards behind them 
Entered in, they saw the monarch who was kneeling. 
And it seemed that he was raving, for the cerements 
Of the corpse were rent and scattered and the jewels 
Lay in gushes of bright hues upon the pavement, 
And he held her body raised, his arms about it, 
And the moonlight and the glare of leaping cressets 
Fell upon them, red and white, and both together. 
And the priests broke out in whispered prayers and 

praises. 
Of the gods, because they saw that she was living. 



EGLON AND EHUD. 

(Judges iii., 12-20.) 

BEFORE the raids and ravagings began, 
Ehud came often to my father's house, 
And there we played and prattled, boy and girl. 
And I delighted in his frank, dark face. 
And he was near me most of all the maids. 

During the desultory fights and wars, 
I saw him often armed among the rest, 
And sometimes, going out or coming in. 
We greeted briefly, or exchanged a word; 
It seemed to me his eyes dwelt long on mine. 

Then, when his home was threatened more than ours, 

I saw him seldom ; later not at all. 

He was not with us on the dreadful day 

When Moab sacked our city in revenge 

For what I know not, and I was enslaved. 

After my capture, I was treated well 
Not sold nor chaffered for, but set apart 
Among the captain's spoils, and presently 
Picked out from them with slim, deft-lingered girls 
To serve as maidens round the lazy king. 

26 



C^lon. and EK\ad 27 

The war was without truce; no man survived 
On either side from any fight or siege ; 
Women and boys were kept if they were Hked, 
But all grown men were butchered ruthlessly, 
Our men as rebels, Moab's in retort. 

As the time passed, I heard of victories; 
Knew Israel was losing everywhere; 
And how indeed could it be otherwise 
After so long a servitude, since most 
Felt the revolt was hopeless when begun? 

Not that our warriors were too weak or few, 
Or Moab's men too many or too skilled, 
Numbers and spirits were on either side; 
But our men needed some one glorious chief, 
Keen-souled, quick-handed, famed for some great deed. 

The Moabites were chieftained by a score, 

All of whose thoughts were Eglon's: he, at home. 

Guzzling iced drinks, pampered, bathed, fruit-fed, 

fanned. 
Heard all reports in silence, slept long sleeps. 
And spoke his mind after a day's delay. 

Then from the cool, jalousied portico 
Where he passed days on his grass-stuffed divan 
We women saw some one lean chief come forth, 
His lips shut on the whispers he had heard, 
With sparkles of su-ccess deep in his eyes. 

And, after each long guarded interview 
Of one alone with Eglon, back he came, 



2 8 Eglon and £Kvid 

Dust on his gilded armor, without wound, 

Leading an undiminished regiment, 

And with them wagons bursting with their spoils. 

So Israel and Moab knew full well 
That were it brother, nephew, favorite, 
Uncle, or son who led and struck the blow, 
The brain was Eglon's and from him alone 
Came Moab's strength and Israel's despair. 

Our men had gathered downward from the hills, 
And thronged the walled towns nearest the frontier. 
Afraid to yield or to disperse toward home. 
Lest they be utterly destroyed thereby. 
And fearing bitterly to keep at war. 

Rumors were bandied back and forth, of doubt. 
Of yielding, of surrender: Eglon's eyes 
Were lidded close, showing like narrow slits. 
He had long conferences with his chiefs. 
Young warriors and graybeards from the town. 

I brought them drink or water for their hands, 
Knocked ere I entered, walked to where they sat, 
Saw all eyes watch me as I came and went, 
But heard no utterance from any one. 
And least the King: so all the other maids. 

And yet some spoke of hearing what was said. 
Falsely or truly, all reports alike. 
The young men were for war, the old for war, 
Eglon in doubt, saying the spoil was less 
Than the old tribute; less and less worth while. 



Cglon and EKxid 29 

Then came a story how men of each side 
Stood by the huge carved granite images 
That are near Gilgal, shouting from afar, 
And so conferring, for each justly feared 
To come to talking distance and converse. 

Then we saw several captains with black brows, 
Scowling and glum, saw elders stroking beards, 
And after heard the terms called in the court, 
We peering through the lattice in the dusk, 
For they were cried at evening in the town. 

Upon the morrow truce was to prevail ; 
No Moabite should pass the images 
Opposite Gilgal — there was set the bound ; 
One party might advance from Israel 
With presents, and beg mercy from the king. 

And it was stipulated rigidly 
That but one party might transgress the line, 
And they but once ; oaths were to be exchanged 
That they would come and go without deceit 
As without peril, but not any more. 

On the next morning we were all bedecked 
In silks and jewels, sentries stalked about. 
Splendid with costly trappings; majesty 
And might were limned in every least detail 
So that the embassy might dread and yield. 

The envoys came on foot, severely clad, 

Muffled in white, slow-paced beneath their loads. 

With downcast eyes ; I looked at them with shame, 



30 C^lon and £K\id 

Then gasped and reddened, whitening to the bone 
To see my Ehud lead them thus abased. 

The king received them in the pubHc hall, 
Pillared and tiled, with lattices of stone, 
Milk-white and fretted into pattern-work ; 
And there they laid their packs aside and stood 
Mute in a circle, Ehud in the midst. 

The king was brief, spoke of the gifts with scorn. 

Said he accepted them, they had no better. 

If the old tribute be paid up in full 

And from henceforward, peace should be declared. 

Otherwise war, it was for them to choose. 

Ehud replied; spoke soothingly. The terms. 
He said, were hard, yet they accepted them ; 
Asked ten days to disperse in, and disarm 
The young irreconcilables ; from then 
The gatherers of the tax might safely come. 

Then Eglon's manner changed ; he called for slaves 

To bear away the bales; called servitors 

To wash his loyal subjects' dusty feet; 

Then summoned us to lave their hands and bring 

Cool drinks and fruits and honey-cakes for all. 

Ehud was seated opposite the king. 

It fell to me to hand to him the drink. 

He had not recognized me in the throng. 

And, when he saw me, his eyes flared with love 

And pity, so my weak hand spilled the wine. 



E^lon and EKvid 31 

The king just grunted; signed me to step near; 
Cuffed at my middle with his pudgy hand, 
And bade me, as I gasped between my tears. 
Stand to one side among the untrained girls. 
I leaned against a pillar, white for shame. 

Ehud gave me one look ; arose to go 
When the king signified it was his will. 
They left the palace seeming satisfied, 
And I, escaping from my comrades' jeers. 
Watched from the roof toward Gilgal as they went. 

I saw them pass the statues; saw that one 

Tarried; then with the royal officers 

I saw the man return, and knew from far 

Ehud, and marvelled what might bring him back, 

Hoping all things, yet fearing most for him. 

I slipped down as he entered, saw him led 
Into the cabinet which faced the north. 
An upper room next the veranda there. 
Thick-walled and doored, and lighted from above, 
And saw all servants ordered thence away. 

I listened next the guard-room, heard the talk. 
He had declared that private enemies 
Of his had led the outbreak; he would name 
These to the king — his fellows must not guess. 
They knew the king so wished and led him back. 

Then I was seized with disregard of life. 
Stole neai- the cabinet, found him so obeyed 



32 Eglon and EHxid 

That no one had remained even on guard, 
And then I found a key-hole and peeped in, 
Saw Ehud sitting, heard what each one said. 

Eglon was on his sofa, lolled at length. 

Wine, fruits, and ice upon a tabouret 

Stood close beside him. He was pleased and smiled; 

Asked for the names again and licked his lips; 

Then queried was there something more to tell. 

Ehud arose. I saw his face and gasped: 
"I have a message from the Lord our God," 
He said, and caught his gullet with one hand, 
Fumbling under his burnoose with his left, 
Both straining, till the sofa-framing creaked. 

Eglon's loose robe came off; his great gross thighs 
Had hairless patches, and were splotched with red. 
His belly was in folds to near his knees. 
I heard the rattle in his breathless throat ; 
Then saw the glitter of a sheathless blade. 

Fat as he was his strength was wonderful. 
Ehud held on and worked with skill and plan. 
Not hurried nor excited, watched his chance, 
And drove the dagger at his navel deep 
So that it vanished inward, hilt and all. 

Then he took both hands to the blueing throat; 
Endured the buffets of the aimless hands; 
Set his knee on the fluctuating chest. 
And held till there was silence. Then he rose, 
Arranged his dress, and came to where I was. 



E^lon and £lH\id 33 

The broad veranda was so built and set 
That no one from the courts or terraces 
Could see into it, while it gave a view 
Afar, across the mountains and the plain, 
Even to Gilgal by the watercourse. 

He set the door wide ; winced at sight of me ; 
Then clasped me close, and questioned with his eyes: 
"Safe, safe," I panted, "maid among his maids. 
But you ? Your oath ! You are forsworn. Oh hurry ! 
What have you done ! They are coming. Alas, alas ! ' ' 

He chuckled silently: "They will not come," 
He said, "till Eglon calls, and I misdoubt 
But he will keep good silence till I win 
Far beyond Gilgal. Listen now to me. 
I must be brief, and I must tell you all. 

" I thought you killed; heard of your body found; 
Came here without ambition to submit; 
Had in my heart no treachery; but, when 
That cursed tallow-bladder struck at you, 
The whole scheme flashed upon me in a breath. 

" He would have granted peace now long ago 
Save that our ringleaders he could not clutch. 
And, in the hope of that, he kept at war, 
Till, wearied by his lack of revenue. 
He turned his mind to peace as you have seen. 

"And, when you whimpered, this thought came to me. 
With it my plan, how I could pass the bound; 
Be set free of my oath. I had a sword 
3 



34 E^lon and £K\id 

Ready for treachery to sell my life 
As dearly as might be ; I saw the deed. 

"And so I did; the sight of what you bore 

Gave to me craft, and gave me strength and sleight. 

Now it remains to carry out the best 

Of my device. I mean to rouse our men, 

And sweep this horde of robbers to the grave. 

" Slip out at nightfall; hide among the rocks 
Between the three wild-olives, near the cliff ; 
Wait there whatever happens. If I fall, 
I shall set trusty eyes to seek foi you. 
If I survive the assault, myself will come." 

He left me; went inside the cabinet; 

Barred all its doors; passed out on the other side; 

And went his way to Gilgal. I could see 

The speck I took for him pass the carved rocks. 

And reach my people's camp, and still I watched. 

I dared not slink away, lest I be seen. 

Two women came upon me at the door. 

Questioned, I answered 't was at his command 

I came now toward the dusk ; he heeded not 

My knocking. " Hush," they said, " and come away.' 

The night was pitchy dark; I found the place 
Ehud had told of; watched our men creep up; 
Saw beacons on the hilltops; heard the shouts; 
Beheld the palace fired, and the fight; 
And knew our men were victors everywhere. 



E^lon and EKud 35 

Then came a weird and unforgotten sight : 
Great fires were kindled at the river fords, 
Reddening the shallows with their plenteous glare, 
So that each ripple stood out visible, 
And nothing living could keep hid at all. 

And thus they trapped all Moabites who fled, 
And butchered them at every pass and ford. 
Before the dawn, my Ehud came to me, 
And took me home in triumph. Here I dwell. 
Beholding Israel honored and at peace. 



SHAMGAR. 

And after him was Shamgar the son of Anath, which slew 
of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox-goad: and he 
also delivered Israel. — Judges, iii., 31. 



A HALF-CLAD mountain boy, who swung his goad. 
Trod hghtly up the narrow, flinty road, 
Sparing his oxen at each steeper turn. 
Below, in choked rock-clefts, the spluttering burn 
Gurgled and churned, and the cart's rough-hewn pole 
Creaked in the yoke with every swing and roll 
Of the slow hulks that drew it. From the wall, 
That showed afar above, an evening call 
Sank through the windless interspace, a far 
Faint ghost of sound. There in the east one star 
Showed by the towers. The western sky was white. 
Below the hills the pinions of the night 
Covered the plain, save where some water shone, 
A mirror in the darkened space, alone. 
A sharp turn brought him to a level place 
Where under close trees for a little space 
The road clung to the cliff ; the branches made 
An archway where the sable shadows weighed 
Upon his eyes. When it was almost past, 
A shade upon its outlet there was cast, 

36 



SKamgar 37 

And in the opening a figure stood 
Against the sky, framed by the rock and wood, 
Like a dark warrior graven on the field 
Of a smooth, oval, shining, silver shield. 
The oxen halted. Shamgar, weak with fear, 
Leaned on the cart. The Philistine, his spear 
Levelled, approached him, laughed with scornful joy 
To see the slender, narrow-shouldered boy; 
Gestured; then dropped his spear-head to the ground, 
While Shamgar, trembling, turned his oxen round. 
And then, with words he did not understand, 
Shamgar beheld him ask, with outstretched hand, 
The goad, and bid him walk along before — 
Trusting the dread the desert raiders bore 
To all around, to keep the boy from flight. 
A wave of blood washed over his drowned sight; 
His brain was stormed with hate and mastering fears; 
And all the deaths were yelling at his ears. 
Burning and blind, he struck one random blow, 
Hopeless and maddened, at his towering foe : 
And then, before his raging dread took shape 
In flight, or his thews loosened to escape. 
The armored hulk fell prone across his path, 
And wondering triumph trampled out his wrath. 
He snatched the slain man's dirk, and, in one leap. 
Between his beard and gorget drove it deep ; 
And then, borne down by rage, success, and fears. 
Fell, weak and limp, and struggling with his tears. 
Mastering himself, he rose, and from the dead 
Stripping the corselet, from the shaggy head 
Pulled off the helmet, and almost with awe 
Felt the crushed temple-bone and glowing, saw 



38 SHam^ar 

How deep the blow had broken. On the wain 
He heaped his spoils; turned his slow beasts again; 
Passed safely up the roadway to the town ; 
Through gathering mists and shadows swart and 

brown ; 
And, when the battered, grimy gates were wide. 
Passed in, with shouts of praise from every side. 
To greet the eyes of her he hoped for bride. 

II 

An instant his heart ceased to beat ; he stood gasping ; 

then he 
Dashed forward. As, mightily panting, he ran, he 

could see 
That neither the house nor the crops nor the stacks 

by the barn 
Had been fired. Much plunder was left. The tracks 

by the tarn 
Were a score. Through his home, in a breath, just a 

bare glance he took. 
It was silent; no corpse; nothing living. He gave 

one more look 
At the footprints. No marks were there there of 

small, sandalless feet. 
His girdle he tightened; his cloak dropped, and silent 

and fleet. 
He set off up the face of the hill, through the saplings 

and brush ; 
Reached the crown of the first in a steady, untiring 

rush ; 
There he stopped ; felt the ground ; gazed about, and 

looked backward and out 



SKam^ar 39 

Down the slope and around toward the plain. It was 

here that their scout 
Had kept watch for his coming, and had given warning 

for flight. 
But the path up the rocks was untrodden; by that 

on the right 
The watcher had hurried to join with his mates. 

His ascent 
He resumed, and from midday till twilight he steadily 

went 
Up the bare, broken hills, and crossed over the steep 

craggy crest, 
After hours of tireless running, and still without 

rest 
In the moonlight he dashed down through wooded 

ravines, tore through vines. 
Burst laboredly into low thickets or raced under 

pines 
On the crisp, polished floors of dry needles. Near 

midnight, at last 
He stopped in a slope of dense briars, and heavily 

cast 
His wearied-out body on earth, and lay shaking and 

weak. 
His limbs all a-quiver with heat, too exhausted to 

speak. 
He lay still, he breathed slower, he listened. A 

little below 
The road was all white in the moon-rays, and softly 

and slow 
In the distance the patter of hoofs and the heavier 

sound 



40 SHamg'ar 

Of feet hastening and weary with leagues of uneven 

hard ground 
Emerged faintly from out of the silence, a whispering 

rhyme 
Of movement. He rose, breathed a prayer that 

he had been in time. 
His goad in his right hand, he crept near the brink 

of the bank, 
And into the bushes and shadows he noiselessly 

sank. 
The sheep came in sight and behind them were two of 

the band, 
The rest were ahead and among them ... he tightened 

his hand. 
The ragged and footsore marauders, still followed 

by fears 
Of pursuit and recapture, looked backward, all 

trailing their spears. 
Their eyes on the roadway behind and their minds 

all a-chafe 
At the leagues yet before they would reach the rock- 
pass and be safe. 
The brushwood stirred somewhat above them, the 

branches were rent 
As though by a huge, rolling boulder a landslide 

had sent 
Down the slope: a dark form leapt the bank, and before 

they could know 
What to look for, the terrible goad had laid six of 

them low. 
Like bulrushes broke at its blows the long shafts 

of their spears 



SKamgar 41 

As they set on him, dazed and made slow by the clog 

of their fears. 
The drivers behind the checked flock heard the cry: 

"It is he!" 
And turned back without looking, all breathless and 

silent, to flee. 
The two that had guard of the woman found all of 

their strength 
Would not hold her, and now there were eight who 

lay writhing at length 
With limbs broken, or, still, with crushed skulls in 

the gravelly road, 
And unwounded he stood, and whirled round him the 

terrible goad. 
Their leader, girt on with a sword, set upon him, and 

he 
Fell also, his bones crushed and rent at the joint of 

the knee. 
The cravens fell back at the sight, and the ill-fated 

pair, 
Struggling still with the woman, he set on and slew 

unaware ; 
In a niche in the rock she crouched cowering behind 

him. The swell 
Of his blood was aflame with success, and his mighty 

blows fell 
More surely; his vast sable beard hardly stirred in 

the wind, 
And the raiders, still snarling and fierce, but their 

band sadly thinned. 
Pressed round him, ashamed to give way to one 

unaided foe, 



42 SKamgar 

Each unwilling to be first to flee, and all longing to 

go. 
His eyes flashed in the moonlight; his height seemed 

to grow; they were awed 
By the girth of the man; and his shoulders seemed 

wondrously broad. 
The bravest ran under his guard; pierced his thigh; 

but the rest 
Stood aghast when one blow crushed in the ribbed 

arch of his chest. 
He dashed in among them; one dropped, his jaw 

broken, and one 
Reeled back with an arm dangling helpless; the 

fighting was done. 
All turned them and fled, some toward home, for their 

lives, down the steep, 
And a brace up the road through the midst of the 

terrified sheep. 
Their steps died away in the moon-dusk, and he was 

alone 
With the quivering woman whose sobbing had sunk 

to a moan. 
He turned, and his arms were around her, his face by 

her face. 
And their love and rejoicing forgot both the time and 

the place. 
The stampeded sheep gathered bleating; the rising 

wind roared; 
The wounded men groaned in the road; Shamgar 

searched for the sword; 
Then the moanings were still. When at last the 

scared oxen were found. 



SKamgar 43 

He stripped off the arms of the dead, and upon them 

he bound 
The spoils on the heaped sacks of plunder they even 

yet bore; 
The dead men he counted, and sought in the darkness 

for more. 
The sheep and the oxen turned homeward ; he set out 

to wend 
The slow march to the home he had made, and knew 

how to defend. 
With the wife he had saved once again, his beloved. 

The sun rose; 
And fifteen fresh notches the goad had to tell of 

his foes. 



Ill 



Why are the raiders so cautious, and why do they 

go 
Hundreds together, close-marching and scouting 

and slow; 
They that ranged over the country by couples and 

threes. 
Laden with booty, wherever they found it to seize? 
They have been taught that a score may be scattered 

like chaff: 
Swords are as glass to the blows of a tough-knotted 

staff. 
Dwellers that quaked in the cities, the thickest of 

wall. 
Fight in the open, when Shamgar has sounded the 

call. 



44 SHam^ar 

They that fled quicker than jackals in the earlier 
days 

Fight, when he leads them, like lions in hope of his 
praise. 

Yea, and more dreaded than squadrons with serried- 
set shields 

Shamgar himself is to all that range woodlands or 
fields. 

Is it the corpse of their cousin the raiders have 
found? 

Crushed ribs and skull tell their tale to the blood- 
sodden ground. 

Are their spies certain he dwells in his homestead 
at rest? 

Leagues over country that night he slays one of their 
best. 

Is it a warrior is missed from the council or feast? 

Yea, then the goad has one notch that is freshest, 
at least. 



IV 



Even as he fell, a shout arose 

From the hillside, and his thronging foes 

Glanced behind, and turned themselves and fled. 

Leaving all their wounded and their dead 

Where they fell. The rescuers pursued, 

Fresh and fierce and eager. Crimson-hued 

Every sword and spear was before noon, 

And the slaughter ceased not till the moon 

Sank into the embers of the sun ; 

And of those that fled was left not one. 



SKamg'ar 45 

Hot and grim the victors hastened back, 

Guided by their own corpse-bordered track, 

Whereon none of them had taken harm. 

With the dawn they reached the waiHng farm, 

Sixty henchmen, woundless one and all. 

And his seven sons, black-browed and tall. 

There they found the women on the ground. 

With the untouched bodies all around. 

And his mighty corpse, untouched as well, 

On the sill, lying as he fell. 

When rebuked the slave- women replied: 

"She is still as though herself had died 

And we dared not touch him save she bade. 

We who are not worthy," The sons made 

With their hands a bier, but when they came 

To uplift him, awe without a name 

Froze their limbs and speech. For he lay there. 

His eyes gazing without threat or glare. 

His vast silver beard upon his breast. 

Hiding all his wounds, as though at rest. 

But his right hand gripped the mighty goad. 

Whereon clotted blood and hair still showed 

How it had been wielded, and so tight 

That the knuckles needed three men's might 

To unlock them. Reverently they laid 

On the bier his body, all afraid 

As they touched it; counted then the dead, 

And the goad's old tale of notches read 

Some five hundred notches and threescore. 

And his sons cut on it forty more. 



THE LEVITE. 
(Judges, xix., 27.) 

YEA, I have looked upon vengeance, beheld the 
sword how it smote them, 
Seen the accursed destroyed with their wives and 

henchmen and tribesmen, 
Till but a handful were left wherein ran the blood 

of their people, 
Barely a handful, and all of them were assuredly 

guiltless. 
Nevertheless I cannot find rest or peace for me 

living, 
Nor any troubleless sleep till I wake in the grave 

from all dreaming. 
Still I behold, awake or asleep, the gore-dripping 

panniers ; 
Still my fingers creep with the tingling of flesh as I 

cut it. 
How can I drop to sleep, when every drowsiness 

brings me, 
Back to my aging senses, my weariness after our 

journey? 
What can lull me to rest when I feel again how she 

lulled me? 
Lulled me that very night with tender words and 

with whispers; 

46 



TKe Levite 47 

Soothed me gently to sleep, her fingers cool on my 

forehead, 
So that, as a man is aware in dreams of noises that 

are not, 
In such wise, and no other, the insolent, riotous 

knocking. 
Thundering at the gates like the hoofs of cattle 

stampeded. 
Came to my sleep-walled ears like the croon of waves 

on the sea-beach. 
How can I sleep when sleep reminds me I might have 

wakened ; 
Might have wakened, and saved her, and kept her 

living and with me? 
How can I look on the sun when I feel how it rose 

and beheld me 
Stunned and sunk in a stupor beside her there on the 

doorstep ? 
For I awoke before dawn and found that she was not 

beside me. 
Therefore I rose in haste, for I thought she had 

risen before me, 
So that she might prepare all things for our early 

departure. 
And, when I opened the door, I saw her sunk on the 

threshold 
Dead and scarcely cold, and her rose-leaf fingers 

were weakly 
Curled, like wilting petals, and fallen against the 

woodwork 
On the outside of the cruel door that she could not 

open. 



48 THe L-evite 

Yea, and the air was cool, and the stars above us 

were paling; 
All the eastern sky was green as a precious stone 

is. 
And the horizon warmed with crimson wondrously 

painted. 
Yet I cursed the sky and the night and sleeping and 

waking. 
How can I live, and be with these memories still in 

my keeping? 
How can I sleep and forget, when I hear her agonized 

crying ? 
Hear in my dreams her voice that calls in despair 

and terror; 
Calls in a turmoil and spasm of fear that cannot 

be silent; 
Cries out because it must, and struggles and yearns 

for rescue ; 
And yet smothers its crying with dread of what may 

befall me, 
Dread its accents thrill with, lest perchance I should 

hear it. 



BENAIAH. 

Koi auT09 Kare^r] koI eTrara^e tov Aeovra iv /<€0"a> tov 
XaKKOv iv Trj rj/^iipa. T^s ;)(iovos. — II SaMUEL, xxiii, 20. 

WEEKS, two weeks, of cold had dwelt about us. 
And the mountain beasts were starved and 
savage. 
All the sky was slaty gray at sunset 
Save the gory-hearted west horizon; 
And before the night was well upon us, 
From the sad, uncolumned vault a snowflake 
Fell into the bosom of my sister. 
From the windless sky the powdered feathers 
Sank straight down through the unstirred night-silence 
Till the moonless darkness was illumined 
With a dusty and unearthly glimmer. 
And we doubted of Benaiah's coming, 
For the rock paths of the treeless mountains 
Grow impassable with icy glazing; 
And we knew the leagues were surely slower 
To traverse, if he should be persistent. 
But my sister's eyes had no doubt in them. 
While she sat and gazed into the embers, 
And her neck was curved as if she hearkened. 
Slowly, log by log, the roaring fire 
Crumbled into coals half hid by ashes, 
4 49 



so DenaiaK 

And my brothers rose up to restore it. 

Then her face changed, as if she heard him, 

And she loosed the bolts inside the doorpost; 

Flung the door wide with a joyful outcry ; 

And we saw, in the uncertain darkness. 

Two huge, glassy, yellow eyeballs shining; 

Heard the roar that drowned her smothered screaming ; 

Saw the massive, tawny shape above her, 

All in one half breath; and there was nothing 

Save the blood-stained snow about the doorway. 

When we dashed outside with brands and lances. 

But our brands died while the trail still led us, 

And we slunk home weeping in the darkness 

Wherein now no snowflakes were falling. 

All night long we sat awake and speechless, 

With the doorway barred, and on the fire 

Heaps of faggots crackling and enkindling, 

While the women wailed and mourned above us. 

In the gray of dawn we saw Benaiah 

Striding through the pines against the sky-line, 

On the frozen ravine's farther cliff-top. 

None of us dared face him, or the love-light 

In his yearning eyes as he approached us ; 

None made any answer when he questioned, 

Till a tiny girl-child, weeping, pointed 

To the red trail in the frozen snow-crust. 

All his face was rigid as a dead man's, 

And he strode away, his scabbard clanking. 

Tramping in the claw-prints ; but he had not 

Given any sign of understanding, 

And his lips and eyes had made no movement. 

When we plucked up heart and followed after, 



Denaiarx 51 

We beheld him in a ruined cistern, 

Full three fathoms deep, and walled with boulders. 

He was sitting down collapsed and shrunken, 

By a something which I blenched to look at. 

The blown snow was not so deeply drifted 

But that we could see in it some fragments, 

Frayed and battered, which had been a lion. 



DEIOCES. 

AMONG the doubtful, mute conspirators 
The youngest rose and spoke: "The first sent 
out 
Has failed or faltered. Send another man 
Who may do better. Let us cast the lots; 
Or, if you all approve me, I will try." 
The oldest plotter tugged his grizzled beard, 
And said: "The slave-girl, our confederate, 
Is not suspected, and she waits without. 
After we hear the story which she brings, 
We shall be better ready to decide." 
The girl came in, not wholly at her ease 
Among those huddled faces, row on row, 
Crafty or fierce, according to their years. 
She said: "He entered as had been agreed. 
The moon was high among the quiet stars. 
Its light was stencilled on the silent floors 
A hand's-breadth wide below the lattices; 
Enough of light there was to see his way. 
Too little for him plainly to be seen. 
The King's slow breathing guided him along. 
I could not hear his foot-falls as he went. 
I watched him till he was beside the bed ; 
Then moved a trifle from the aperture 

52 



Deioces 53 

That I might truly swear I had not seen. 

I heard a stir and movement from the bed, 

The planting of two firm unhurried feet. 

I looked again. The King was there, erect, 

His right hand held Harbanus by the throat ; 

His left hand gripped him by the armed right wrist. 

He did not sway. I could not hear him breathe. 

Harbanus writhed and presently let drop 

The dagger, and it fell upon the bed 

And made no noise. The King moved inch by inch. 

And yet without an effort, as it seemed, 

Took up the dagger, drove it firm and deep. 

And then, as gently as a father might 

Lay in its cot to rest his sleeping child. 

Lowered the body slowly to the floor. 

I was afraid to run or slink away, 

And saw him climb again into the bed. 

Cover himself, and soon I heard him breathe 

As evenly as early in the night. 

It was half daylight when he called at length. 

I was among the women of that watch, 

And mingled with the others: 'Send some slaves,' 

He told us calmly. ' Have them clean the floor.' 

And then he turned and slept or seemed to sleep. 

When he arose, Phraortes, white and tense, 

Asked why he had not called the palace guards. 

* What need for guards when I had killed the fool ? ' 

His father answered in his placid tones. 

'There might have been another,' said his son. 

'Well,' said the King, 'and had there been a score 

Which do you fancy they would have preferred. 

To enter as he did or stay without?' " 



54 Deioces 

After the girl had left, the plotters sat, 
Eying each other long, while no man spoke. 
When finally one warrior rose he said: 
"This man we chose is certainly our king." 



THE TITAN. 

BEFORE young Jove harangued the clouds, 
Before Poseidon trod the waves 
And shook the earthquakes from their shrouds, 
Before Dis numbered all the graves, 
The Titans governed all, 

And Kronos was their king; 
And each thing, great and small, 
Remained the self-same thing. 

The fairest of the Titan throng. 

The strongest and most filled with pride. 
Was he who ruled the world of song, 
Whose tunes re-echoed far and wide: 
Loving his perfect wife, 

Placid, content, and grave; 
His music filled his life. 

And made its lord its slave. 

He sang of restful, perfumed noon ; 

Of sunsets in immortal skies; 
Of waters silvered by the moon ; 

Of morns when suns were glad to rise ; 
Of pleasant sounds and sights ; 

Of easy streams and ways ; 
Of storm-forgotten nights; 
And tuned, discordless days. 
55 



56 XHe Titan 

Instinctive, with no thought of choice, 

He sang with all the woods in spring; 
But the gaunt forest's winter voice 
He did not hear and could not sing: 
The blue gulf's tropic calm 

He echoed note for note; 
But never the vast psalm 

From the storm- wrenched night-sea's throat. 

The sun-baked sand-waste's husky groan, 

The ice-field's startled, tortured roar. 
The thoughtful pine-land's midnight moan, 
The blind caves in the ocean's floor. 
And all things fraught with fears, 

Touched by a test or smart. 
Were shut from out his ears 
And known not by his heart. 

Men's harvest festivals he hymned, 

Their wedding fervor and their mirth; 
And all their days by care undimmed, 
And all the pleasures of their earth ; 
Their lives lived out in vain, 

Their anvils' sobs that rang, 
Their passion and their pain, 
He neither guessed nor sang. 

Beloved by Titans and by men. 

He felt his songs pervade the days; 
Heard his tunes echoed back again 

Fulfilled with earth's and heaven's praise: 



THe Titan 57 

Without a fault or flaw 

They were the stars' decree, 
And the earth's tidal law 

Attuning land and sea. 

And he, the lord of harmony, 

Found heaven dear and earth delight, 
Both made of his own melody 

And goodly to his sense and sight; 
And often he would go 

Far from his home above, 
To taste from men below 

Their worship and their love. 

Where King Admetus ruled the land. 

He strolled once through bright meadow-slopes, 
Between the forest and the strand, 

And met — his eyes ablaze with hopes — 
The eager shepherd lad 

Who watched the monarch's sheep, 
Fair-haired, his blue eyes sad, 
Smiling, and quick to weep. 

And breathless and unasked he spoke: 

"My Lord, you sing such perfect songs! 
In my heart, too, the songs awoke 

Long since: the clamped earth's pains and wrongs, 
Its labors and its fears. 

Its cold and bitter heat, 
Blend strangely in my ears 

In rare strains, new and sweet. 



58 The Titan 

"And what I sing I do not know, 

And vainly do I wonder why, 
And with the days my hopes still grow 
That men will hear me by and by: 
Some good thing for the land 

May be in every word. 
Your race might understand, 

If through your help they heard." 

The kind eyes saw, and saw him not, 

The soothing hand half stroked his hair, 
The lips that answered half forgot 
All, save their own songs everywhere: 
The Titan, whom no woes 

Had touched, who knew but joy. 
Knew not a young god grows 
Like any other boy. 

" My son," he said, "sing and be glad. 
But sing no troubles, throes, or fears. 
Be calm. No healthy heart grows mad. 
Dream not to reach the Titans' ears. 
Unto their homes no word of 

Your songs, like smoke upcurled 
May rise: yours are unheard of 
And my songs fill the world." 

And, pacing toward the white-walled town. 
With satisfied, rapt eyes and ears. 

He did not see the boy's quick frown. 
Nor hear the tempest of his tears: 



TKe Xitan 59 

Nor mark how soon his grief 

Merged in a sombre song, 
Thin, Hke an autumn leaf. 

And quivering, but strong. 

But, when afar, the songs pursued 
His senses, blotted out his own, 
And frighted him with vague, subdued 
Suggestions of far fields unmown. 
And all his heart was stirred, 

And told of everything 
That he had never heard 
And he could never sing: 

The rest that comes but after toil ; 

The gladness that is born of pain ; 
The justice that no sin can foil; 

The strength that can hope on in vain: 
Beauty that contrast gives; 

How peace comes out of strife; 
How trust contends and lives, 
And death illtmiines life. 

Then many ripening ages passed, 

And imperceptibly as frost 
Revokes its settled seals at last, 

Withdraws and dwindles and is lost. 
The Titans' rooted strength, 

So perfect in its days, 
Dissolved away at length 
As though a morning haze. 



6o XHe Titan 

Jove ruled and all the gods were throned, 

Apollo's songs, all warmth and light, 
Through heaven and through earth intoned 
Their twin threads, woven dark and bright: 
The tempests and the stars, 

The free, glad buds that sprang. 
The cowed things galled by bars. 
Together woke and sang. 

From every drowning seaman's breath, 

From gasps of women's breaking hearts, 
From shame, despair, and sin, and death, 
From petty chafings of the marts, 
From qualms that blench and pine. 

From hates unclean and mute. 
He wrung sweet songs, like wine 
Pressed from the tortured fruit. 

No longer now for happy lords 

And never for dulled, hapless slaves 
The star-songs pulsed : in full accords 

They searched not only homes but graves. 
And all things dear and dread. 

That foster and destroy. 
Sang out, the days that bled 
With days that burst for joy. 

. And in the air the new songs thrilled 
The unregarded Titan fared 
Through fields and woods his songs had filled, 
Where his old notes of pride had blared, 



XKe Titan 6i 

And there Apollo met 

Him, from, the days foregone 
A wraith that lingered yet; 

A starlet quenched by dawn. 

The Titan, aged and sad, besought: 

"In your best music's perfect bloom 
Can there be granted space for naught 
Of my songs to survive my gloom ? 
Your strains are true and strong, 

But men loved mine of old. 
Surely they were not wrong, 
Some of my tunes w^ere gold?" 

The young god answered, clear and swift, 

"I asked you once, in my lone youth, 
A little patience to uplift 

To ears enthroned my hope and truth : 
The help you might have lent 

To me in my distress. 
My strength and yearning blent, 
You did not even guess. 

"But this thing which you ask of me 

Could not be brought to pass again 
By them that rule the sky, the sea. 

The births, the souls, the graves of men : 
The distance is immense 

Between our sundered arts. 
For your songs pleased men's sense, 
And my songs stir men's hearts. 



62 XKe Titan 

"This thing Jove's thunder could not give, 

Nay, nor could god-compelling fate : 
Your songs had their own time to live, 
This present is for them too late: 
The vague old time was rotten, 

Its phantoms' wings are furled, 
And your songs are forgotten, 
And my songs fill the world." 



THE LAST BOWSTRINGS. 

THEY had brought in such sheafs of hair, 
And flung them all about us there 
In the loud noonday's heat and glare: 
Gold tresses, far too fine to wind. 
And brown, with copper curls entwined. 
And black coils, black as all my mind. 

In the low, stifling armory, 

Whence we could hear, but might not flee, 

The roar of that engirdling sea, 

Whose waves were helmet-crests of foes. 

Winding the cords we sat, in rows, 

Beside a mound of stringless bows. 

Since the first hill-scouts panted in, 

Before siege- fires and battle din 

Filled night and day, and filled within 

Our hearts and brains with flame and sound, 

We had sat, huddled on the ground. 

Our tears hot on the cords we wound. 

We knew, when the first tidings came. 
That not the gods from death or shame 
Could save us, fighting clothed in flame. 
63 



64 XHe Last Bo^rstrin^s 

The mid-sea's marshalled waves are few 

Beside the warriors girt with blue 

The gorged hill-passes then let through. 

Their spears shook like dry wind-stirred reeds 

Stiff in a marsh's miles of reeds; 

Loud blared the neighing of their steeds; 

The whole wide land beneath the stars 

Felt, from wheel ruts, or fierce hoof-scars, 

The deluge of their rumbling cars. 

Against our walls their flood was dammed, 
Within which, till each porch was jammed, 
Farm-folk and fisher-folk were crammed: 
Heaped stones inside the gates were piled. 
While all above us, calm and mild. 
In bitter scorn the heavens smiled. 

Our men dwelt on the walls and towers, 
From over which, for endless hours, 
The hissing arrows flew in showers; 
The sling-stones, too, came crashing down. 
As though the gods of far renown 
Hurled thunderbolts into the town. 

Where the hung temples showed their lights 
Some women prayed upon the heights ; 
Some stole about throughout the nights, — ■ 
Who bore the warriors food by day, — 
Gleaning the arrows as they lay 
That they might hurtle back to slay. 



XKe Last Bo-wstrings 65 

And where the rooms were heaped with stores, 
Because the stringless bows were scores, 
We were shut in with guarded doors; 
All day at hurried toil we kept. 
And when the darkness on us crept 
We lay, each in her place, and slept. 

Quick as we worked, we could not make 
Strings fast as bowmen came to take 
Fresh bows: and, oh, the grinding ache 
Of hearts and fingers : maid and slave 
And princess, we toiled on to save 
Home that already was our grave. 

Six days we wound the cords with speed ; 

Naught else from us had any heed. 

For bitter was our rage and need. 

At last, upon the seventh day, 

Into the fury of the fray 

They called our very guard away. 

No food was brought us. Faint with thirst, 

What wonder was it if, at first. 

Some wailed that the town gates were burst? 

If later, to the last embraces 

Of child or mother, from their places 

Some slunk away with ashen faces? 

I cursed them through the door unbarred; 

I vowed I would not move a yard. 

Lest some one man of ours, pressed hard, 



66 XKe L-ast Do"wstrings 

Might be left weaponless alone. 
Until I died or turned to stone, 
I would wind were the hair mine own. 

A sudden shiver shook my frame, 
I looked up with my face aflame ; 
But, oh, no tongue has any name 
For the despair I saw enthroned 
In my love's eyes, all purple-zoned! 
I smiled to greet him, and I groaned. 

He buckled on a fresh cuirass, — 
His own was but a tattered mass 
Of gory thongs. I saw him pass 
Out of the portal ; with good-byes 
And blessings filled, and yearning sighs, 
For the last time I saw his eyes. 

Each moment, all my blood areel, 

I felt the thrust of deadly steel 

I knew his body soon must feel. 

My heart was choked with prayerful speech; 

The high deaf gods were out of reach ; 

My eyes dry as a noonday beach. 

More cowards left. Few now remained. 
Still at our task we strove and strained 
With bleeding hands and iron-brained; 
And still my fingers all were fleet, 
Though in my temples burned and beat 
The murmur of the stunning heat. 



XHe Last Do-wstring's 67 

There rushed in for fresh arms just then 
Some of our allies, — small dark men; 
It slowly dawned upon my ken 
That one, who by a spear- heap kneeled, 
Fierce-browed and grimy from the field, 
Carried my brother's painted shield. 

My heart beat in long, tearing throbs; 
Sharp torchlights stormed my eyes in mobs ; 
And my breath came in rasping sobs ; 
The tears from both my cheeks I wrung ; 
So wet my hands were that they clung 
Slipping along the cord I strung. 

Mutely we toiled until my maid, 
Her lips tense as the strands she laid, 
Grew wan; her deft quick fingers strayed: 
Then she pitched forward with a groan, 
And lay, white, motionless, and prone. 
I wound on hastily, alone. 

Harsh and unevenly outside 

Shields clanged. Men called, and cursed, and cried; 

And when again the latch was tried 

My knife lay somewhere on the floor. 

Alas! I found it not before 

Three armored foemen burst the door. 



KRANAE. 

DROWNED, weed-grown crags the waters hide 
Far under the Ionian sea 
Once flashed aloft in gleaming pride 
The sunlit peaks of Kranae. 

Blue waves, turned silver-surf in ranks. 

Played round her cliffs, white, clean, and high, 

Cool forest-leafage clothed her flanks 
In shimmering green against the sky. 

Between sharp reefs an entrance wound 

Into the port, where, sheltered well, 
The tiny, white-walled town shone round 

Its temple and its citadel. 

No change their island world had neared 

From mobs to self-reliance schooled. 
Obeyed and honored, loved and feared. 

Their orphaned king unquestioned ruled. 

The posted watchers on the height 

Conned all the sky-rim, island-free, 
And if strange sails appeared in sight 

Signalled the fishing-craft to flee. 
68 



Ii.ranae 69 

One day at dusk, short-breathed and pale, 
Their runners roused the town to fear, 

A war-fleet of a hundred sail 

Out of the east was drawing near. 

They waited, every man arrayed, 

Their galleys out as channel-guards, 
But lo! the stranger-ships displayed 

Green olive-sprays from prows and yards. 

They found them Greeks in race and speech 

Bound from Phocaea, on the quest 
Of homes out of the Persians' reach 

In Corsica, beyond the west. 

They beached their ships along the shore, 
The cliff-hung, scythe-shaped sweep of sand 

Where, such uncounted years before, 
Paris and Helen came to land. 

A long curved row of fires burned, 

And with their crimson radiance dyed 

The cliffs, the strand, the sable-sterned, 
Ranked ships that hid the deep outside. 

Black cauldrons swung against the flame, 

Cloaked crouchers round the blaze were warmed. 

And in the glare that went and came 
The islanders and voyagers swarmed. 

Presents of cattle, fruits, and bread 
The generous folk made haste to bring, 

The elders came and at their head 

Their handsome, young, unmarried king. 



yo Ilranae 

From group to sea-worn group he went, 
Gentle of voice and quick to please, 

And left them solaced and content, 
Hopeful and cheered and at their ease. 

About the farthest fire stood 

Tall women with their new-grown girls; 
One in a cloak, whose fallen hood 

Revealed her rippling, golden curls, 

Erinna, daughter of the best 

Of all Phocsea's richest men. 
Her father, at the king's request. 

Called her, presented her, and then 

Somehow they drew apart, and soon 

Strolled past the ships, where firelight failed. 

Voices were blurred, and from the moon 
Long sparkles on the water trailed. 

The blaze-lit beach was ruddy gold. 
The moonlit wave-slopes silver-white. 

Around them was the manifold 
Sweet mystery of summer night. 

They paced, and did not need to speak; 

She revelled in his martial air; 
He watched the firelight warm her cheek, 

The moonlight cool upon her hair. 

Their hearts were full; their lips were dumb; 

She breathed delight ; he could but note 
How well rich jewels would become 

Her low, broad brow and slender throat. 



K.ranae 71 

Too rapt to feel how much they yearned, 

To know how much their hearts were stirred, 

Back to the camp-fire they returned 
And parted there with scarce a word. 

After a night of waking dreams, 

The king resought the strand at dawn, 

And found, before the sun's first gleams, 
Swift preparation to be gone. 

Amazed and taken by surprise, 

He urged the wisdom of delay, 
And still he did not realize 

What he had hoped for in their stay. 

Depart, the leaders said, they must. 

Their hardy venture called for haste. 
The strong, fair wind that they could trust 

Proffered a help they dared not waste. 

He watched them drag their galleys down. 
Not knowing why he was distressed. 

Then sent a runner to the town 
To fetch his mother's jewel-chest. 

And when the last-launched galley rode 

And dipped upon the even swell, 
Up to Erinna's folk he strode 

To greet her and to say farewell. 

He begged her mother's leave to deck 
Her forehead with his mother's pearls; 

Rubies and emeralds round her neck 
He clasped, set deep in golden whirls. 



72 Uranae 

Her father thanked him for his gift ; 

They went on board ; the canvas drew ; 
He watched the galley plunge and lift 

And then grow small against the blue. 

He watched the dim specks fade and melt 

Into the sky-line, far away, 
Not realizing what he felt 

Through half the duties of the day. 

The midday brought him no repose, 
He could not sleep, could only brood, 

And still his mind did not disclose 
A comprehension of his mood. 

His thoughts went westward with the fleet, 

He saw them on a hostile coast. 
Saw all the dangers they must meet 

Swarm round them in a threatening host. 

Sly Carthaginians would intrigue 

With herdsmen, raiding from the downs, 

Ligurian Gauls would join in league 
With haughty, fierce Etruscan towns. 

He saw Erinna, small and frail, 

A timid, brave, pathetic shape, 
Dragged on adventures that must fail 

Through terrors she could not escape. 

In a revealing flash that made 

His heart stand still and stopped his breath 
He saw assault succeed blockade. 

Beheld her capture and her death. 



R.ranae 73 

Plain as the sun's clear noonday disk 

He saw how precious was to him 
This treasure-girl he must not risk 

On seas ferocious, wild, and grim. 

In a bewildering, dazing dance 

He felt his hopes and fears revolve, 
Then saw his one remaining chance 

And seized it with a swift resolve. 

Using his special pride and joy, 

The swiftest galley on the seas, 
Knowing the lads he would employ. 

He could come up to them with ease. 

He chose his crew, explained their goal ; 

All loved him, all were keen and staunch; 
And then with an impatient soul 

He urged them to prepare and launch. 

The wind was fair, but at the oars 

His comrades strained for greater speed, 

Watching the sunlit island's shores. 
Uplands, and dwindling peaks recede. 

Straight towards the sunset clouds they drove, 
Each man alert, no oar pulled slack, 

Then through the dusk and night they clove 
The shimmering moonglade's guiding track. 

The relays, huddled, lay asleep; 

The zealous rowers tugged and sang ; 
The king steered, leaning on the sweep; 

His brain with pride and glory rang, 



74 Rranae 

To think that all this wood and bronze, 

Cordage and sail and sinewed skill. 
This speed as graceful as a swan's 

Existed but to work his will. 

After the moon was gone, the west, 

As if the sunset reappeared. 
Glowed with red Etna's spouting crest 

And toward its gory glare they steered. 

Later they saw the mountain loom ; 

Then in the starshine they divined 
Far headlands beetling in the gloom. 

Black shapes in blackness ill-defined. 

Before the eastern sky was gray, 

Before the stars above were weak, 
Low down abeam, along a bay, 

They saw a twinkling, ruddy streak. 

The oarsmen cheered, and craned to look ; 

The sails and yards were stowed. They brought 
The ship's head round; she leapt and shook, 

Now headed for the camp they sought. 

Lest their approach might cause alarm. 
They beached her softly, with no sound, 

Behind the point whose rocky arm 

Sheltered the camp which they had found. 

The king advanced alone, and crept 

Past sentries, none of whom awoke. 
To where around their fire slept. 

Wrapped in their cloaks, Erinna's folk. 



Ilranae 75 

Herself lay on her furs. He thrilled 
To see her small, transparent hands 

Clasping his gifts in sleep, and filled 

With deep-hued gems and golden bands. 

Longings for him had filled her heart 
Till dreaming of him took their place, 

And now, through eyelids slow to part, 
She saw the lovelight on his face. 

While round the sinking embers drowsed 
The camp, the pale-lit shore was mute, 

Erinna's kinsfolk were aroused 
To pass upon her lover's suit. 

He had their liking and respect ; 

The gifts he offered in exchange 
Were far too lavish to reject; 

Besides they could not think it strange; 

If they should venture to refuse 

The maiden he so greatly prized, 
He might be goaded on to use 

The other means which they surmised: 

The serried spearmen who might lurk. 

Resolved to win success or fall. 
Hid in the morning's mist, to work 

His will and answer to his call. 

They guessed them ready for a rush ; 

Saw gifts far more than they could ask; 
And saw the warrior's fury flush 

Beneath his suave expression's mask 



76 tlranae 

Therefore they gave her. All day long 
Beside their galleys they rejoiced ; 

With wedding-cheers and many a song 

Their gladness and their hopes they voiced. 

While of her hero she was glad, 
To leave her parents she was loath, 

But now the kindly breezes had 

Veered southward till they favored both. 

Before the dusk they started forth 

Upon the ending of the feast. 
The fleet rowed boldly towards the north, 

The bridal galley towards the east. 

The sunset reddened sails and spars; 

The moonlight silvered all their wake; 
The darkness shone with countless stars, 

The dawn was just about to break. 

Beside the rail the bride and groom 
Wakeful and nestled, mute and fond, 

Basked in a bliss that left no room 
For thought of anything beyond. 

They heeded not who watched or steered; 

The toil-worn men in silence rowed, 
Till Kranae from the waves appeared, 

And back of it the sunrise glowed. 

Thus to their loyal home they won. 

And shared their palace and their throne 

In happiness that was not done 

After their children's sons were grown. 



Kranae 77 

The aged lovers long were dead 

And laid at peace among the graves 

Before the day of shock and dread 
That sunk their isle beneath the waves. 

Their doubly-buried marble tomb 

Still holds the undivided pair, 
Unchanged and lifelike in the gloom, 

His jewels round her throat and hair. 



THE RETRIBUTION. 

IT was after the hosts of the Persian King were 
utterly scattered and slain 
That I made one of a scouting raid through a treeless 

and waterless plain. 
The King and the army had followed fast to the 

mountains where Bessus had fled, 
And we were a hundred rollicking lads with Mathos of 

Crete at our head. 
Our party was one of a score that the King had 

scattered to harry the land, 
And each was to act as each deemed best and carried 

his life in his hand. 
We left the road at the river ford, and we struck 

through the trackless waste, 
And ten leagues off we came to a spring that was 

shaded and sweet to taste. 
We left the spring, and in ten leagues more we came to 

the castled peak 
Where we had been told that a booty lay, which was 

worth the coming to seek. 
The castle had gardens all about, and was builded of 

chiselled stone, 
And the crag that bore it was steep and sheer, and 

stood in the plain alone. 
The walled road wound from the fortress gate to the 

roots of the mighty hill, 
78 



THe Retribvition 79 

And twenty men might have held the place against all 

our force or will. 
But we were Alexander's men, and our name was a 

terror to all, 
And never a man would dare to fight, for what we 

attacked must fall. 
The lord was old and not overbold, and his vassals 

were gray with fear. 
And he sent his son to treat for terms as soon as 

he saw us near. 
And Mathos answered the land was ours, and all of 

its souls our slaves, 
And if one man of our band was harmed, the vultures 

should dig their graves ; 
But since they had greeted us courteously, we would 

spare their homes and lives, 
And take their horses and slaves and gold, and leave 

their daughters and wives. 
They led us into the castle court, and stabled the 

horses all. 
And each of us kept his sword at hand for aught that 

might befall. 
We ate, set guards at the gates, and slept, and rose 

at the break of day 
To search the castle from roof to rock for what we 

could carry away. 
The frightened women clung round the lord, and 

Mathos strode to one, 
"I shall have this girl for a journey-mate," he said, 

"when our stay is done." 
"My daughter she is," the old lord cried, "I have 

your pledge, she is free." 



8o THe Retribvition 

And Mathcs thrust his long jaw out, and he grunted, 

"She pleases me." 
Her brother stepped out with a heaving breast, 

cheeks white, and an angry frown, 
And Mathos lifted his sheathless sword, and hewed 

the stripling down. 
The old lord struck with his naked fist, and Mathos 

fell with a groan, 
And we yelled and scattered them right and left, 

and they fled as the girl had flown. 
And Mathos, spitting teeth and blood, snarled out like 

an angry hound. 
And three in the flurry there were slain, and the rest 

were tightly bound. 
But the tall grave girl with the fine-spun hair we 

neither held nor found. 
Then we set stout poles on the castle wall, with 

cross-bars nailed or tied 
And the white-haired lord and his shrieking serfs 

on them we crucified. 
We cast our lots for the women all, and we led them 

past in sight 
Of the men that writhed on high in a row, and we 

found the wine by night. 
We revelled high in the castle hall, and whenever 

we could hear 
A scream from the wind-swept wall without, we 

answered it with a cheer. 
We slept in a heap as each man fell, and woke when 

the sun was high, 
And the first who went to the stable called with a 

scared and startled cry. 



XKe Retribvition 8i 

The horses were hamstrung every one, save the four 

of the chariot team 
The lord had showed us with special pride as the 

highest in his esteem, 
And when we rushed to the terrace wall, we saw on 

the road below 
A scythe-wheeled war-car like to those we had terri- 
ble cause to know, 
And the four bays drew it, and, when we looked, they 

had nearly reached the plain, 
And there was no chance that our pursuit could near 

the girl again. 
For we saw with amaze that the driver there was the 

girl, and the girl alone. 
And she stood on the lurching chariot-bed like a 

goddess upon her throne ; 
She wore a corselet of quilted mail, and she waved an 

arm on high 
To where the knotted corpses hung against the 

morning sky, 
She lashed the horses, and whirled afar on the parched 

and plantless land. 
And at last a mere speck disappeared in the cleft of 

two hills of sand. 
We slaughtered the women with fire or steel as our 

mood was, swift or slow. 
And each man packed a burden of spoil, and we made 

all haste to go. 
It was dusk when we trod the level ground, and we 

walked in the velvet glare 
Of the orange light that was shed afar from the 

blazing castle there. 



82 THe Retribution 

As we trudged we passed on into the dark, and behind 

us died the flame, 
We steered by the stars, and just at day to the place 

of the spring we came. 
The burnt tree-trunks were charred to the earth, and 

the spring was choked and gone. 
And the soil on it trampled by horses' hoofs, and their 

prints were plain in the dawn. 
We questioned each other's wandering eyes, and each 

man looked around. 
There was nothing in sight but the cloudless sky and 

the calcined, powdered ground. 
The plain was brown and yellow and dun, and the 

billowing sand-dunes rolled 
Like ocean-waves as far as the sky, and two of them 

shone like gold. 
Then out from between them rose the sun, a red-gold 

shield afar, 
And blazoned upon its crimson disk a scythe-wheeled, 

four-horsed car. 
The girl stood in it erect and dumb, and the sun was 

behind her head. 
And she lashed the beautiful curvetting bays and 

straight at our midst she sped. 
The spear-head shone on the chariot-pole a man's 

length out before, 
And the cruel scythes on the hissing wheels in the 

sand-spray flashed and tore, 
A score of us hurled our trusty spears, but they missed 

her, all the score. 
And through the midst of our burdened line her track 

was a gully of gore. 



THe Retribvition 83 

She wheeled the car in a narrow curve and straightway 

turned it back, 
And Mathos, cool, with levelled spear, stood con- 
fident in her track, 
He aimed at the left-hand leader's throat, but he 

missed when it yawed and reared, 
And by the pole of the rocking car through the chest 

was Mathos speared. 
She checked the bays in their fullest course; they 

pranced and the pole was free ; 
And the scythes in her passage had mown us down, 

and each wheel slaughtered three. 
In our quivers our arrows stuck, our bow-cords slipped, 

and we could but fail 
Of every shot, for the few that sped glanced harmlessly 

from her mail ; 
The horses' wounds but spurred them on; they flew, 

but none bucked or fell. 
And she leaned back on the tightened reins and 

guided them swift and well. 
She turned the team at a spear-shot off, and lashed 

them back with a cry. 
And every man of us felt in his heart he would be 

the next to die. 
We had dropped our loads and we dropped our 

shields, to all of the winds we fled. 
And she at the scattering of us paused in the midst 

of the mangled dead. 
And when she had seen who ran most swift, on him 

was the next death done. 
And round us in circles she drove and mowed the 

swiftest, one by one. 



84 XHe Retribvition 

They had been brave, but the bravest fled Hke a tooth- 
less, beaten cur, 
And his heart was water within his breast when he 

heard the nearing whir 
Of the hungry scythes as they gnawed the air, and 

his scared Hmbs could not flee, 
When he knew that the swish of the hurrying blades 

would reach him just at the knee. 
There was neither crevice nor rock nor tree, no shelter, 

no place to hide; 
She drove at random east and west, and she saw each 

man, and he died. 
I saw no hope and I could not flee, I stood in the 

midst and gazed: 
I saw the last man die and I lived, and my heart with 

dread was dazed. 
Then I bethought me that I had called to Mathos to 

hold his hand, 
When he slew the boy who had spoken no word, 

and I waited for her command. 
She drove the car to me at a walk, it was all one clot 

of gore. 
And she gestured toward the river ford, and I walked 

as she bade before. 
We reached the ford in the early dusk and I knew as 

though I had heard 
The message she meant me to give to the King, al- 
though she had uttered no word. 
I saw our men on the farther bank, and I waded into 

the stream. 
And heard her pause in the midst of the ford, and 

turned as though in a dream, 



THe Retribution 85 

I saw her turn the chariot down at the deepest place 
of the ford, 

And urge the maddened shying colts where the 
rapids leapt and roared ; 

I saw a satisfied, terrible smile on her drawn dis- 
cordant face. 

And I saw the horses and car in a heap in the current's 
midmost race; 

I saw the horses and her go down in the light of the 
vanished sun, 

And I knew that the raid which Mathos had led was 
utterly finished and done. 



VERTUMNA. 

FROM mountain-ridge to seashore, all the plain 
Had not one man as handsome as the King, 
Mirandus, who had just begun his reign. 

His boyish eyes were full of manhood's spring. 
His look was always eager, quick, and glad, 
His lips seemed just about to shout or sing. 

Men loved him as a frank and royal lad 

Ready to hunt or fight with equal joy, 
And women loved him for a way he had. 

Firm as a man, imperious as a boy, 
In every matter he would have his way; 
Advice he heard, but seldom would employ. 

Ardent and fond, he had no wish to stay 

Unmarried, but his spirit chafed with spleen 
Against all forms and customs. He would say 

Parent or guardian, nurse or go-between. 
He would not talk with : he himself should choose 
The maiden who would be his wife and Queen. 

Nobles and burghers pondered on the news. 

Their lovely, well-decked daughters, one by one. 
Tried with the prince such wiles as women use. 

86 



Vertvjmna 87 

He liked them all, but fell in love with none, 
And still continued seeking for a wife 
As eagerly as when he had begun. 

Vertumna lived an isolated life, 

A prophetess and priestess, set apart 
From throngs and traffic, chattering and strife. 

A sorceress devoted to her art, 
She dwelt beside a solitary shrine; 

Duty and lore engrossing all her heart. 

Her temple stood upon a rocky spine 

That jutted from a mountain-spur, among 
Forests of chestnut, beech, and sombre pine. 

From near and far came suppliants, some young, 
Lovers and warriors, some by problems vexed, 
Grave councillors, controlled of face and tongue. 

Responses solved the doubts of the perplexed, 

The sick or wretched found her skill their aid. 
One man she cured and comforted the next. 

Wrapped in her lore, proud of the part she played. 
Of love or loving she had never thought, 
By choice and calling she remained a maid. 

One day the King, astray while hunting, sought 

Refreshment and direction as he passed. 
The sight of him before her temple brought 

So swift a change, love stormed her heart so fast, 
That all her maiden moods and aims were gone 
Like leaves blown seaward by a sudden blast 



88 Vertxxmna 

Dreaming of him, she lay awake till dawn, 

Hoping for love, her blushes blazed and burned; 
Fearing contempt, she startled like a fawn. 

Doubting herself, she dreaded to be spurned; 
Of meeting him she thought with keen alarm; 
To meet, allure, and win him still she yearned. 

Then she remembered her most potent charm, 

Learned from the kindly dryads of the wood, 
Within her powers, sure and free from harm. 

By exercise of sorcery she could 
Assume at will, and, while she wished it, wear 
Whatever semblance to her whim seemed good. 

Stature and shape of features, hue of hair, 

Tint of complexion, color of her eyes, 
Could make her seem unutterably fair. 

And, if she failed at first, she might devise 
A new appearance and if that were vain 
Vary her subtle, exquisite disguise. 

Whatever guise should help her love to gain 

His love, her magic spell would make her own. 
And such, as if so born, she would remain. 

She made herself a woman nobly grown, 
Tall, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed, and yellow-haired, 
Like princesses her childish dreams had known. 

Her garb and her adornment well prepared. 

Throbbing with hopes she did not dare evince. 
Screened in her litter, to the town she fared. 



Vertvimna 89 

Mastering the fears that made her shrink and wince, 
Upon some pretext easy to aver, 

As temple- ward, she asked to see the prince. 

He gave her audience without demur ; 

Was gracious; listened; granted what she asked. 
But never seemed to see or notice her. 

Her power of self-control had been so tasked 
By her chagrin, that when at home again 

And like herself, her woe could not be masked. 

Her women, seeing all her soul in pain, 

Not knowing why, and scared, did all they might 
To soothe and cheer her, not for long in vain. 

After a frantic, agonizing night, 
She moped some dreadful days and nights away ; 
Then woke one morning, purposeful and bright. 

Again she wove enchantments to array 

Her yearning soul in charms of dainty flesh 
Such as few women ever can display. 

A milk-white skin, miraculous and fresh, 
A regal poise, deep hazel eyes aglow. 

And burnished, bronzy tresses, mesh on mesh. 

In this appearance she took care to go 

Into the city when the king would ride 
In a procession, dignified and slow. 

Borne loftily, her litter open wide, 
Among her cushions, she surveyed the throng 
Whose admiration filled her heart with pride. 



9© Vertvimna 

Her waiting for the pageant was not long. 

The pomp wound towards the place of sacrifice. 
Expecting tritimph, all her hopes were strong. 

Yet utter failure met her proud device. 
The king surveyed her with a steady gaze, 
But did not pause or con her beauty twice. 

Incredulous, bewildered, in a daze, 

She was unconscious of her journey back. 
For long she drooped. At length, her hopes ablaze, 

Once more her spells prepared for love's attack 
Splendors of form and features, eyes like jet, 
A dark, warm skin and hair of shining black. 

Clothed in such beauty, once again she met 
The king, and won no more of his regard 
Than previously. Her purpose still more set, 

She showed another guise, as evil-starred, 
Again and yet again. He took no heed. 
His gaze was blank, impersonal, or hard. 

Her oracles all promised her good speed. 

And, though so often baflfled and ignored, 
She hoped the mystic seventh would succeed. 

So, when from her distress her fancies soared, 
She made herself a girl beyond all girls 

With all the grace enchantment could afford. 

Small features, rose-leaf skin, and teeth like pearls. 

Dimples, curved lips like coral in their hue, 
Big violet eyes, wide brows, and golden curls. 



"Vertximna 91 

Riding amid his splendid retinue, 
He passed her as she stood beside the road, 
As lovely as a rosebud starred with dew. 

His dazzled train, all fascinated, glowed 
With admiration, but he gave no sign, 
As stolid as the horse that he bestrode. 

Fearing her gods were false, or turned malign, 
Despondent, abject, broken, dazed, and cowed, 
She shrank away; abandoned her design. 

And, when at home, despairingly allowed 

The days to pass in brooding, heeded not 
The arts and duties which had made her proud. 

Her clients left, ignored or clean forgot ; 
She wandered in the wilds from glen to glen, 
Wide-eyed, but gazing at she knew not what. 

So far she kept from all the ways of men 

That seldom did a faint, thin, distant horn 
Tell her of hunters barely in her ken. 

Woe-weary, heavy-hearted, and forlorn, 
She sought her safest, favorite retreat 

Across rain-freshened hills, one fair, clear morn, 

A little brook-side glade was at her feet, 
Sun-gilded trees above, a beetling crag 
Behind her, hollowed to a throne-like seat. 

She heard the brushwood crackle, and a stag. 
Too wearied out to run, tottered and crept 
Into the glade on limbs he scarce could drag. 



92 Vertximna 

His hunted eyes upon her face he kept, 

Crawled to her, laid his head upon her lap, 
As if for shelter. Then at last she wept. 

Melted to pity for the beast's mishap. 
She felt at last the soothing balm of tears ; 

Her bonds of wretchedness all seemed to snap, 

The moods and visions of her springtime years 

Revived in her there sobbing, with her face 
Beneath his antlers, laid against the deer's. 

When, straightening up, she loosened her embrace 
Of the stag's neck, the creature looked around. 
Listened, and flitted from the open space. 

She sat alone, a slim girl, simply gowned 

In white wool homespun, her complexion pale 
As bloodless flesh the sun and wind have browned. 

Wisps of her lustreless light hair atrail 

Escaped their bands by either hollow cheek ; 

Her slender neck seemed pitifully frail. 

Her small, cleft chin was quivering and weak; 

Her thin, straight lips were colorless and shook; 
Her faint gray eyes were dim, resigned, and meek. 

She heard a splash, a footstep by the brook, 
And instantly the king came into view 
Alone, and saw her in her sheltered nook. 

A qualm of panic burned her through and through, 

She had not time to hide or flee or weave 
A spell to make her beautiful anew. 



"Vertiamna 93 

She sat there numb, yet could not but perceive 
On the king's face a look that overjoyed 

Her heart with hopes she dared not half believe. 

Transfigured by a rapture unalloyed, 

He neared her with a diffident advance. 
"Are you some deity I should avoid," 

He said, " some vision of a waking trance? 
Some goddess or some wood-nymph of these hills? 
If you are human, by what strange mischance 

"Have we not met before? Your presence thrills 
My mind with wonder and my heart with flame. 
The longings of my soul your face fulfils. 

"Are you divine? Unwittingly I came 
To sacrilege, yet plead not. Slay me here. 

Or are you mortal? Let me know your name." 

She answered: "I am human, do not fear. 

I am Vertimina, priestess, head, and ward 
At the cliff- temple of the fruitful year." 

" Strange, " he exclaimed ; "your looks do not accord 
With anything I seem to recollect 

Of that Vertumna." She replied: "My lord,- 

"You saw me fairer far and better decked, 

Radiant in robes and jewels, glad and sure. 
You passed me without notice or respect." 

He said: "Adornments could not but obscure 
Yourself, for had it been yourself I saw, 

I must have loved you then, beyond all cure. 



94 Vert\imna 

" But now I see your very self you draw 

All that I am to love you, I behold 
In you my boyhood's dreams, my manhood's law." 

Such was their wooing. Till they both were old 
They saw their perfect happiness endure, 
Glad of each other, living days of gold. 



THE MEASURE OF THE SWORD. 

Ita omnes humiliavit ut etiam poeros ad spatas metiri 
praeciperet et quicunque eandem mensuram excederet capite 
plecteretur. — Chronica Sangallensis. 



IN his great tent amid his camp 
King Charlemagne, with crisped white beard, 
Heard angry shouts and then the tramp 

Of an excited mob that cheered. 
Yelled, "Murder!" bellowed, "Seize him! bring 
The wretch!" and "Leave it to the king!" 

"Stone the false knight!" and snarled and jeered. 

He stilled them, asked them why they made 
This outcry, followed them, and found 

Near the encampment, in a glade. 
Count Fulk of Var upon the ground. 

While, with a foot upon his neck. 

His youthful slayer held in check 

The gnashing crowd that raged around. 
95 



96 TKe Measure of tKe S^vord 

Riding among them, Charlemagne 
Repressed the tumult and the cries 

Of "Justice," "Judgment," "Foully slain," 
And others. From about their prize 

The slain man's furious retinue, 

Aflame for their revenge, withdrew, 
Abashed and quelled beneath his eyes. 

The King then bade the youth declare 
What was the vengeance he had sought, 

And granted him a chance to swear 
The duel had been fairly fought, 

And when his story had been told 

The lad stood, confident and bold. 
While the King sat in silent thought. 

Amid the tense, uneasy hush, 

The dead man's henchmen breathing hard, 
Alert and ready for a rush, 

Leashed by the monarch's stern regard, 
The King addressed his mounted peers 
And paladins, who, grave in years. 

Sat next him, grizzled, tanned, and scarred, 

"My lords, how are we to decide? 

Either this young man's spite and hate 
Besmirch the dead, if he have lied, 

With crimes too hideous to relate, 
Or, if their truth should be assured. 
For the injustice he endured 

No reparation is too great," 



TKe Measure of tKe S'word 

Said Ogier: "I believe this youth." 

Said Huon of Bordeaux: "We trudged 
Campaigns together; 't is the truth." 

The Count of Flanders had not budged 
Upon his horse. He growled: "I know- 
That every word he says is so." 
Then thus the Emperor adjudged: 

" His death in combat at your hands 
Was just; his sins be on his head. 

His titles, vassals, serfs, and lands 

Are yours by right. Let all men dread 

To harm you. Now that they have heard, 

Let no man contravene my word." 
And this is what the youth had said : 

II 

" King Karl, the measure of the sword 

He meted out to me of old 
I have here repaid. I have restored 

Back into hell the soul he sold. 
This carrion beneath my heel 
Should have been broken on the wheel 

For deeds too monstrous to be told. 

" I slew him in a fair, set fight. 

I used no vantage to begin: 
On any man of greatest might 

Among his hirelings or his kin 
I am prepared at once to prove 
My words, if any dares to move 

The test which I am sure to win. 

7 



97 



98 XHe Measvire of tKe S-word 

"Yet before any shall advance 

As champion, let them all weigh well 

My wrongs, and how there is no chance 
To overcome me. I shall tell, 

That all who listen here m.ay be 

Judges between this corpse and me. 
Just how between us it befell. 

"Only one single time before 

Did Fulk and I stand face to face. 

I was a child then, yet I swore 
To have his life, but not by base 

Plots, or by tricks: I did not choose 

Such means as he was keen to use. 
Which I escaped by Heaven's grace. 

" A great lord, mighty in the realm. 
With fiefs and castles, should have had 

No taxing task to overwhelm 

A poor, scarce friended, nameless lad. 

Yet at the thought of me he quailed, 

And all his treacherous efforts failed. 
With Heaven's protection I was clad. 

" While I was yet a tiny waif 

Chance charity had saved and kept. 

My days and nights were never safe 

From murderous caitiffs, knaves that crept 

About me, or who lay in wait 

To poison what I drank or ate, 
To stab or brain me as I slept. 



TKe Measvxre of tHe S>vord 99 

" While I was yet a page, unskilled 

In combat or the use of arms, 
My very neighborhood so filled 

His guilty conscience with alarms 
That he endeavored to prevent 
Encountering me and all it meant 

By pagan spells and heathen charms. 

" And when I had become a squire. 
Though I was dogged, day after day, 

By the assassins he could hire. 
If near him my lord's forces lay, 

He always managed to arrange 

For his command some sudden change 
That took him some half a world away. 

" While I was with the northern host 

Searching morasses for the dens 
Of forest savages, his post 

Was south among the Saracens; 
And when my master marched to Spain, 
This coward hastened to regain 

The naked heaths and fog-wrapped fens. 

*' Throughout those years, while I was set 
On my revenge, and though I knew 

That I should kill him if we met, 
I was as much resolved to sue, 

If chance permitted, at your throne. 

Convict him, so regain mine own, 
And leave his punishment to you. 



loo XKe Measure of tKe S'word 

" Then came that glorious day whose noise 
Yet rings, when, while our elders feared 

Or blenched, ten thousand ardent boys 
For certain death we volunteered, 

With Aimeri to lead us on 

To storm impregnable Narbonne, 

While all the army prayed and cheered. 

" And when our frenzied, hopeless dash, 

To our amazement and delight. 
All in one swift, bewildering flash 

Stormed town and castle, keep and height. 
As you were generous to accord 
To every lad his due reward. 

With others I was made a knight. 

"When several of us, by your leave. 

For special praise our deeds had gained, 

Had been selected to receive 

Presents of honor, you had deigned 

To grant to me at my request 

Whatever weapon pleased me best 
Of all your treasury contained. 

" And when, in all that countless hoard. 

Where mounds of hilts and scabbards shone, 

I recognized this self-same sword 
As if it had been there alone, 

I knew that it was God's plain will 

That in my hands this blade should kill 
This traitor, now it was my own. 



TKe Measure of tKe S-word 

" I told my friends that I should make 

No accusation or appeal 
And each took oath he would not break 

His silence, and would not reveal 
My wrongs, till after God's design. 
As shown me by this wondrous sign, 

Was executed by my steel, 

" After your armies ceased to roam, 
As all your conquests had been won, 

And every man who had a home 

Turned homeward, since the wars were done, 

Fulk knew that I was on his track 

And schemed to weaken the attack 
He could not any longer shun. 

" So to this place I was decoyed 

Alone, that he might here commence 

The combat he could not avoid, 
And win it by his skill of fence; 

Or that his skulking cravens could 

Surround me, sneaking from the wood. 
While he but stood on his defence. 

" But when he recognized this blade 
Before him from its scabbard flashed, 

His green tusks chattered, and he swayed, 
And self-abandoned and abashed. 

He tottered, shrouded in the gloom 

Of his inevitable doom. 

Before our swords had met and clashed. 



I02 XKe Measure of tHe S"word 

" Knowing God's anger and his guilt, 

The framer of the vilest plot 
By which on earth was ever spilt 

The blood of innocents, for,got 
His craft and signals. The red spout 
Of gore that let his vile soul out 

Removed our knighthood's foulest blot. 

" This is the tale of what he did 

And save that I must clear my fame, 

It should remain forever hid, 

Not only since he soils our name, 

But as this fiend was called a man. 

His greed and his satanic plan 

Must fill all kindly men with shame. 

Ill 

" Enthusiastic for the spread 

Of our true faith and of your sway. 

My father, young and ardent, led 
Some hundred men-at-arms away 

From Var, where our great castle frowns 

On farms and forests, towers and towns, 
Of which he would be lord some day. 

" Yet he felt called upon to preach 

Religion in the very nest 
Of heathendom, to plant and teach 

Our knightly ways in lands unblest. 
His youth and power, his wealth and will 
He dedicated to fulfil 

What he conceived was God's behest. 



THe Meas\jire of tKe S"word 

" Count Guy demurred he could not spare 

From his plain duty to his fief 
His eldest son and darling heir. 

He urged his need of him, his grief 
At his departure: yet his heart 
Was all on fire to depart, 

Full of his purpose and belief. 

" Pleasure and safety he forsook; 

Beyond your realm's utmost verge 
Far north and east his way he took. 

Your herald and the heathen's scourge. 
Forests and mountain-chains he passed 
Till on the Saxon heaths at last 

His force was able to emerge. 

" Besides him, many knights espoused 
The pious hermit's hope to save 

The heathen tribes, and were aroused 
To march northeastward in a wave. 

But he alone achieved success; 

Others limped homeward in distress 
Or found in savage wilds their grave. 

" He built a castle on a hill. 

And after months of hard-fought strife 
Subdued the chiefs he did not kill ; 

Won to our faith and way of life 
The kinglet nearest to the place. 
With all his family and race, 

And took his daughter for his wife. 



103 



I04 XKe Measure of tHe S-word 

" She bore him seven goodly boys, 

And me the eighth. He loved his lot, 

Its power, honor, wealth, and joys. 
But could not pierce or rend the knot 

Of foes about him; could not stir 

Towards home, or send a messenger; 
And so lived utterly forgot. 

" Meanwhile, Count B"'ulk had qualified, 
With full observance, to succeed, 

After Count Guy of Var had died, 

To all his fiefs, and, though his greed 

Showed later, this then was no crime. 

Since he and all men at that time 
Believed he was the heir indeed. 

" And then at last your patience turned 
To ire, since Saxony disgraced 

The world with heathen rites, and spurned 
The faith all other men embraced. 

And you made ready to despatch 

A mighty host, to overmatch 

Their tribes and leave their land a waste. 

" The heathen so aroused your wrath 
You gave commands to execute 

All captured males along their path. 
To accept no convert or recruit. 

Beheading mercilessly both 

The men and boys of manly growth ; 
And, that there should be no dispute 



TKe Measure of tKe S^vvord 105 

" Who should be slain and who be spared, 
You gave a sword-blade as a guide, 

By which, point down, hilt up, and bared, 
All doubtful cases should be tried, 

And those whose heads should come below 

The cross-guard, set and measured so. 
Should be preserved, and none beside. 

" The very sword which you bestowed. 
To which you bade your men align 

Their prisoners along their road 

Has now, by heaven's plain design. 

Become my weapon, by your gift. 

Before your eyes you see me lift 
This red avenger, which is mine. 

IV 

" It pleased your council to select 

That Ganelon for chief command. 
Who then had all the world's respect, 

And with him went, as his right hand. 
Count Fulk of Var, my uncle, then 
One of the Empire's richest men 

And leader of a mighty band. 

" They poured through Saxony, a flood. 

An inundation swift and vast, 
Drowning the land in fire and blood, 

And leaving nothing where they passed ; 
They came to where my father dwelt 
And he exulted, for he felt 

That his reward was near at last. 



io6 XHe Measure of tKe Svrord 

" As if for pastime or to hunt, 

Without a helmet and unarmed, 
To meet their close-ranked serried front 

My father cantered, unalarmed, 
Not dreaming that their grim approach 
Could, even by mischance, encroach 

On his domains, or he be harmed. 

" Scattered behind, light-horsed and few, 
Without a breast-plate, bow, or spear. 

His easy-going retinue 

Followed without a thought of fear. 

And when they saw their master swing 

His cap, and heard him shout and sing, 
They waved their caps and gave a cheer. 

" He saw the archers in the van; 

He saw Var's haughty banner float 
Above them — little ripples ran 

Across it. Then on every coat — 
He did not need to scan it twice — 
He saw displayed his own device ; 

Var's house-call carolled from his throat. 

" My father bade his men rejoice. 

Count Fulk of Var, upon the flank 
Of his battalion, knew the voice, 

The call; his crumbling heart-strings shrank. 
That instant, as he recognized 
His brother's face, he realized 

His loss of power, wealth, and rank. 



THe Meas\ire of tKe Sword 107 

" He did not hesitate or pause: 

Quick as a lightning-flash he chose 

To give himself to Satan's claws. 

He yelled out: 'Ambush! These are foes. 

Volley ! ' and, as the order rang, 

A thousand bow-strings gave one twang; 
A cloud of arrows, hurtling, rose. 

" My father fell. Without remorse 
His fiendish-minded brother rushed 

Upon the corpse his prancing horse 
Until the upturned face was crushed. 

From off his breast the archers tore 

The emblazoned surcoat that he wore 

And thus the plainest proofs were hushed. 

*' Some of my father's men survived, 
All wounded, all in tears and crazed 

From panic ; and with these arrived — 
While all the castle force was dazed — 

A wash of wolfish men, that put 

The helpless gate-guard under foot. 
Before the drawbridge could be raised. 

" The sun was blurred, behind the smoke 
Of villages and farms transformed 

To embers. All the doors they broke. 
At the first rush the keep they stormed. 

My mother with her sons was found, 

And all of us were seized and bound. 
About us jeering swordsmen swarmed. 



io8 XHe Measure of tKe S'word 

" My mother, dignified and tall, 

Amid their taunting, blood-stained glee, 

Kept up her courage through it all, 
Still confident, if she could see 

And talk with any knight or lord. 

He would to us at once accord 
Protection, and would set us free. 

" Then she beheld this mighty count, 
The blackest-hearted wretch on earth, 

Enter the courtyard, and dismount. 
She told our lineage and birth. 

He saw, if she should win belief. 

By truthfulness and touching grief, 
How much his titles would be worth, 

" So, when this fair pathetic wraith 
Declared us Franks and nobly born, 

Baptized and of the holy faith. 
By misadventure made forlorn, 

Since he was with the lords to flout 

Her pleading words, and raise a shout 
Of ' Pretext, ' she was met with scorn. 

" Famished and thirsty, galled with chains. 
We passed, inside a crowded sty, 

A night of miseries and pains. 

Then we were led, we knew not why, 

Down to the castle's tilting-field. 

And there we watched and saw revealed 
The doom that we were threatened by. 



T"Ke Measure of tHe Svrord 

" I saw the stern commander stand 

Where round a slab the grass was mown, 

This very sword-hilt in his hand. 
He set the point upon the stone. 

Then from his mother's arms, fast-clenched 

About her child, a boy was wrenched, 
And stood beside the blade alone. 

" I saw Lord Fulk, with others, lean; 

I saw the four bluff swordsmen bend 
To eye the space that came between 

His ringlets and the cross-guard's end. 
And, when again his mother clasped 
Her boy, she laughed and sobbed and gasped, 

And why I did not comprehend. 

" One after one the children filed 
Up to the sword and were let pass. 

And then a somewhat taller child 

Reached to the inwrought steel and brass. 

I saw the burly swordsmen seize 

The lad, and force him to his knees. 
His head rolled severed on the grass. 

•' A score, a hundred lads were held 
Beside the sword, and all were served 

Alike. The swordsmen toiled and yelled, 

The red blades flashed, and never swerved. 

The corpses lay about pell-mell. 

The heads were kicked from where they fell. 
Only the babies were preserved. 



109 



XKe Measvire of tKe S^word 

" I staggered at my mother's knee, 
Too weak, too innocent, and young, 

For what I had been forced to see. 
I smelt, and tasted on my tongue. 

The steam of blood. 1 saw the spouts 

Of gore along the swords in gouts; 
The noise of shrieks about us hung. 

" But when towards us the butchers moved. 
The Count of Flanders interposed : 

'This woman's tale is not disproved, 
Its verity may be disclosed.' 

He said: 'I hold that we should wait 

Until we can investigate. 
The truth cannot be changed or glozed.' 

" But Fulk of Var then raised a cry, 
With furious rage and evil zest. 

That every one of us should die; 
We were not worthy of the test. 

But Ganelon stood fast and scowled; 

Ignored them both, and only growled: 
* Let them measured be with the rest.' 

" Seeing the men-at-arms advance, 
My brother whispered in my ear: 

* Be brave. You have at least a chance. 
Cling to your life, keep up your cheer. 

Avenge us. After you have hurled 

This hound to earth, tell all the world 
His crimes, that all mankind may hear.' 



THe Measure of tHe S-word 

" He topped the great sword, hilt and all, 
And knelt himself, not faint or weak. 

Our helpless mother saw him fall. 
As if she called on God to wreak 

His vengeance on this heartless wretch, 

The very heaven seemed to stretch 
Before the frenzy of her shriek. 

" But though so terribly she screamed 

At each inexorable stroke, 
She looked at first as though she dreamed. 

Then suddenly her mind awoke 
To her imutterable loss. 
She fell, stretched out as on a cross, 

And never moved again or spoke. 

" Then, of all earthly hope bereft, 
Cold, dizzy, shuddering, and blind 

With terror, I alone was left, 

A strong voice bade the men unbind 

My hands, and from behind my head 

The youthful Count of Flanders said, 
His voice encouraging and kind : 

" ' My child, endeavor to be strong. 

Go like a knight, since go you must. 
Even the worst will not be long. 

I shall make sure the test is just. 
And this much comfort I can give, 
I shall protect you if you live. 

You have one friend whom you can trust.* 



Ill 



112 THe Measure of tHe S"word 

" Though at his words I felt resolved, 
Yet when Count Fulk, my uncle, leaned 

To watch me, all my brain revolved. 
Above the harvest he had gleaned, 

Upon me such a gaze he fixed, 

Where eagerness and relish mixed 
As on the visage of a fiend. 

" They thrust me forward then to death, 
Tense, numb with horror and despair, 

I stood, I faced him. In one breath 
I saw his gloating, wolfish glare 

Change into doubt, saw dazed surprise, 

Chagrin, and panic in his eyes — 

And felt this guard just graze my hair." 



DONE FOR. 

THE taste of failure I had never known, 
Success had claimed and marked me for its 
own, 
Boy- feats more than I could recall or tell 
I learnt at once and executed well. 
I had been liked by all both young and old, 
And grew up healthy, natural, and bold. 
Then, with my spurs, I won myself a name, 
And in a year or two no narrow fame. 
All eyes were turned to me in field or town 
From pure good-will not less than my renown. 
I found a welcome from light-hearted blades, 
And had soft looks and words from wives and maids. 
Nothing I did came slowly or came hard; 
None showed for me dislike or disregard; 
Court-life and war and tourney-field and rest, 
I liked them all, and knew not which was best. 
Then I met her, and all my life was changed. 
At court, although my answered eyes had ranged 
Along the ladies' seats, and met bright smiles, 
Her look was fixed as though she gazed for miles 
Beyond my shoulders, and beheld, past me, 
Some sight she would be pleasured not to see. 
The fierce delight of battle paled and dimmed. 
What profit now to meet some mighty limbed, 

8 "3 



114 Done For 

Loud-named helm-hewer, and leave him stretched and 

stark ; 
I knew that when she heard she would not mark, 
But would sit with her courteous calm grace, 
Without expression in her pose or face. 
And in a joust or tourney, if some stroke 
Or some dexterity of mine awoke 
From benches and from dais round on round 
Of warm applause, when at the welcome sound 
I caught a free breath in the weapon-play. 
And cast a single longing glance her way, 
My heart would stop and my lungs burst with 

rage 
To see her chatting with some dapper page, 
Plying her lace fan evenly and slow. 
Not even watching wounds and death below. 
Yet I still hoped my prowess or blind chance 
Might win her love or make some slight advance. 
Though she was always chilly, curt, and rude. 
Despair I would not, since I had not sued. 
And, while in doubt, the dream might still be nursed 
That the last outcome would not be the worst. 
Then came the crisis in my kin's affairs; 
Freshets of hopes alternate with despairs; 
Hindrances to our wealth, shocks to our fame — 
Gusts of reports surcharged with loss and shame. 
Vague rimiors, open mutterings, later yet 
Plain charges, challenge made and challenge met. 
And I was chosen by our clan and side 
Chief champion, and accepted in glad pride. 
Up to this time, though I had yearned in vain. 
And being near her had but brought me pain, 



Done For 115 

All her rebuffs and cumulative scorns 

Had spurred me on like flagellating thorns. 

To brood upon how all my plans befell 

Was irritant but stimulant as well ; 

Looking ahead, I knew she might reject 

My suit outright, but I did not suspect 

Despondence or dejection's grip might seize 

My coiled volitions, come what chance might please. 

The more insuperable the prospect seemed, 

The more my sinews strung, my tense brain schemed 

To conquer chances, to subdue her hate, 

To win her love and person soon or late. 

And now I felt keen joy that I could trust 

My eye and hand to win this much discussed 

Wager of battle. Dearly I loved strife — 

Man set to man for honor or for life. 

Here both were risked; much honor was to 

win. 
Wealth, power, reputation for my kin; 
Leadership with them while my prime endured 
And chieftaincy in age would be secured, 
And all these hung upon my sword and spear. 
And so seemed easily in reach and near. 
And, such is love's fatuity, I weened 
That, if, victorious and well-demeaned, 
I came out from this joust, I had some chance, 
If at the nick I made a bold advance. 
To win consent from her, or at the least 
Some sign of yielding ; and my hopes increased. 
For till the judgment ends all hopes and fears, 
Through dreads and doubts, through centuries and 

years, 



ii6 Done For 

Lovers will plan, by service or by deed — 

Such as would gain a well-disposed maid's heed, 

For one who plead transfigured, flushed, and scarred — 

To win from unrelenting dames regard. 

By the preceding day I had well planned 

Our strategy, and had advised my band. 

Nothing remained till dawn to do or say; 

Hale, shrived, and houselled on my bed I lay. 

There came to me returning thoughts of her, 

Forgotten partly in our warlike stir. 

I rose, and in the sidelong moonlight there 

Kneeled on the rushes, and in brief hot prayer 

Besought our Lady and the saints to give 

A sign, not that 1 should prevail and live — 

Of both these I felt certain — but if aught 

That I could do would touch her heart or thought. 

When afterward I laid me down and slept. 

Into my ken a vague, dim vision crept. 

It seemed that I was smaller than I am. 

My lids drooped heavily; my hot eyes swam; 

My breathing made no sound, my tongue was dumb; 

I could not move my limbs, I was all numb. 

With a strange sense of helplessness and fright 

Like a girl-child lost and alone at night. 

I felt as I imagined one might feel 

Trampled by hoofs, battered and pierced by steel, 

Who all night in the wind and frost has lain, 

Crushed yet alive under a heap of slain. 

I lay cramped, crumpled, weaponless within 

The circling arms of some one of my kin 

Who bore me, not as one would strain below 

Some great-boned warrior, pantingly and slow. 



Done For 117 

But as one bears a weightless infant, caught 

Against his breast, without remark or thought. 

I seemed borne down with an enormous weight 

And struggHng to remember, now too late, 

Things best forgotten, as though I had passed 

Through some misfortune limitlessly vast. 

Nothing was clear in this strange dream except 

The hateful, certain consciousness — that kept, 

I knew not how, coiled round me like a snake, 

Like nothing I had ever known awake — 

That I was broken, crippled, spoiled, and maimed. 

My body ruined, yet my soul unshamed. 

Then like a torch-flash through my dreaming flared 

The half thought that I had essayed and dared 

Some needless danger for my lady ; fought 

Against vast odds ; had acted as I ought, 

And had been conquered by some chance malign. 

Wrecked and disfeatured by no fault of mine 

But in her service, and my heart ebbed out 

At the unconquerable pressing doubt, 

Would she still spurn me as when her fit mate. 

Or pity somewhat now my wretched state. 

All this passed in a breath ; my bearer strode 

With his unnoticed, barely sentient load, 

Down a long cloistered corridor-like way. 

Pillared at intervals, as light as day. 

With a clerestory pierced with windows square. 

Opened unlatticed to the outer air, 

And set above my head some feet, as though 

A walk was there whence one might gaze below. 

And moving as we moved through them we saw 

My lady's face, pure, fair, without a flaw, 



ii8 Done For 

Gazing straight forward, quiet and unvexed, 

From each space reappearing in the next, 

As if she paced for pastime in her pride, 

And knew or heeded not mjr pain outside. 

My bearer turned, some steps he reached and climbed. 

And there, as if our movements had been timed. 

At a door, arras-hung, framed in carved wood. 

Upon my left my lovely lady stood, 

Her hand upon the hangings, on her head 

A circlet of cut jewels flaming red. 

Her curled lips redder, her cheeks pale and cool. 

Her eyes deep-colored like a woodland pool, 

Her garments flowing, graceful fold on fold, 

But all her seeming not more fair than cold. 

And when she saw me perfectly and clear, 

She laughed out with a ringing, merry sneer. 

My heart shut at the sound ; my dreaming broke ; 

In a cold agony of dread I woke, 

And in the young light of the growing morn 

I lay, eyes shut, heart quaking and forlorn. 

Unthinking and by folly too deceived, 

In my fierce panic then I quite believed 

This was the sign for which I just had prayed, 

And, so believing, was the more afraid; 

But now for years I have known in my heart 

That it was sorcery or wicked art. 

Witchcraft I had discredited, and charms; 

Magic to me had never caused alarms; 

But now I felt its might ; without a spell, 

No change could come such as to me befell. 

All of the current of my nature's stream 

Was altered by that momentary dream. 



Done For 119 

Victor in all my fights, strong to prevail, 

I felt my hams cringe and my courage quail, 

My pride snuffed out, and my ambition bowed 

As if I were a laggard, quelled and cowed 

By the remembrance of recalls, retreats, 

Disasters, blunders, sneakings, and defeats. 

That transient vision made my force as lame 

As a long past of cowardice and shame. 

The thought of wounds had been as strange to me 

As a real wound or overthrow could be. 

And now anticipations crammed my head 

Of agony and terror, pain and dread. 

My very arms brought fright to me, not pride, 

My impulse was to crawl away and hide. 

I bungled our formation ; lost my head ; 

Misplaced the watch-words ; fought with arms like lead ; 

Went down before a boy opponent's spear. 

And all beholders said I blenched for fear. 

We lost the gage, I was not killed outright. 

Though I had many wounds ; and in the night 

My kin conveyed my senseless carcase off, 

And hid me well from injury or scoff. 

When cured and whole, my life was done, and I 

Fled here ; took orders ; and here wait to die. 



MARCABRUN. 

A la fontana del vergier, 

On r erb es vertz jostal gravier. 

Marcabrun. 

I found her by the fountain where 
The castle garden slopes aside. 
The spring birds' songs lit all the air, 
And that slim brook the grasses hide 
Droned in the shadows; many flowers 
Made all the borders glad and fair. 

After so many lonely hours 
I saw her kneeling there. 

Through endless leagues of angry sea 

And wet gray skies we won the shore 
At dawn; the sunrise seemed to be 

A dawn in heaven, with the roar 
Still in our ears of strange, wild waters, 

With hands outworn by sword and oar. 
Weary of watchings and of slaughters 

We wandered now no more. 

With the soft air I loved so well 
Fresh in my nostrils, still it seemed 

Too sweet to be; I could not tell 
Whether I lived or if I dreamed 

I20 



Marcabnan 121 

To wake with Moslem war-cries ringing 
Around our starved camp, yell on yell, 

In the hot, desert twilight, singing 
The songs of fiends of hell. 

Across the orchard's gentle slope 

She did not look as I drew near, 
As in my voice there was no hope. 

Speaking her name, she did not hear; 
Then I perceived that she was praying. 

I stood irresolute, for fear 
Lest I might hear if she were saying 

Words only for God's ear. 

"Dear God, it was at your behest," 

She said, and tears were in her voice, 
"That brave King Louis with his best 

Took the one love that was my choice 

On his crusade to strive and battle 
For your son's tomb, a dreadful quest. 

Each night I hear his hoarse death-rattle 
In dreams of wild unrest. 

"Alas, two long years have gone past 

Since I saw him, nor have I heard. 
Was my last sight of him the last 

In very deed? My eyes are blurred 
With tears. I pray to keep him living, 

Dear Lord, each day; my dreams are stirred 
Still with no message of your giving 

No comfort, not one word. 



122 Marcabrxin 

"Dear God, his love would have been mine, 

Had he not gone into the East; 
The voice that called him was divine, 

Oh, let it answer me, at least. 

Give me some hope, give me some token 
He is alive across the brine. 

If no assurance may be spoken 
Give me at least some sign." 

My heart within my bosom sank. 

Turned all at once from flame to lead ; 
The blood in all my body shrank, 

The heavens boomed above my head ; 
The earth beneath my feet seemed sinking; 

My doom in blazing words outspread, 
Seemed written on the sky, and blinking, 

And gasping, thus I said: 

"My lady, all your fears are vain. 

Charles of Loupey is living now ; 
As we cast anchor, with his train 

I saw him at his galley's prow. 

His name is crowned with all men's praises; 
His sword has mown his foes like grain ; 

Blest with high honor, such as raises 
Few, he comes home again." 

My darling started, and her face, 

As if she suddenly awoke. 
Changed, but she moved not from her place 

Till I had ceased ; a soft smile broke 



Marcabrxin 

Forth in her eyes, like opening flowers, 
Through me it sent a lightning stroke ; 

Her tears fell gently, like spring showers ; 
Then she stood up and spoke. 

No other face so fair might be, 

No angel's voice could tell her charms. 

"I will chide God no more," said she. 
And opened out to me her arms, 
"God is good, he has made me know it, 

Since him I prayed so long to see 
My own true love, my loyal poet, 

God has brought back to me." 



123 



CERTAINTY. 

THE huge rough Duke, all ruddy and fresh-tanned 
With the last war, lolled in the winter sun 
Upon his bear-skins and rich furs in piles. 
Southward the day was perfect on the land, 
Crisp zephyrs all around the castle spun, 
The sky seemed made of smiles. 

The slim fair King, close-knit and nervous-thewed, 
Sat by him on the terrace, in his chair, 

His sword beneath his lute across his knees. 
His eyes saw more of everything he viewed, 
Although he quaffed less deeply of the air; 
Felt less the bracing breeze. 

"A poet do you call this pensioner?" 

ScofEed the big Duke, a laugh deep in his beard, 
"Poet, and therefore pensioner of yours! 
If he be so, his songs make little stir. 

Who sings them ? Is he loved for them or feared 
Among your troubadours?" 

"Nay," quoth the King, "a pensioner he is, 
Being my loyal subject from the first. 
A poet is he, perfect in his art. 
If you have never known a song as his. 
Believe me when I say his very worst 
Have moved my inmost heart." 

124 



Certainty- 125 

"Give me a sign of each," still urged the Duke, 
"His utter loyalty for no rewards; 
His poet's soul, one not to be denied." 
And the King knit his brows, half in rebuke, 
Half at his memories of rebel lords, 
And slowly he replied: 

" He was the first I spoke to when my wrong 
Was at its greatest. And he took my side — 
A ragged wanderer, altered and alone — 
And he it was who made the battle-song 
We sang, when in my traitor uncle's pride 
We hurled him from the throne. 

"And, when I asked him how he knew his King, 
He answered as a poet only might, 

His quick eyes lit with an undoubted gleam : 
' I knew you without proof of anything. 
I felt conviction in me at first sight, 
As vivid as a dream,' " 



THE EMPEROR. 

TOWARD evening of a perfect afternoon, 
The morrow of a gorgeous festival, 
An emperor was pacing by the sea. 
Like sluggish wreaths of lapsing incense-smoke 
Dissolving down a stilled, deserted aisle 
There eddied in the cloisters of his soul 
Subsiding reminiscences of pomp. 
Emotions, adulation, and resolves. 
Save for his youngest son, a child at play, 
Between the pines and waves he stood alone. 
The round, red sun above the sailless sea 
Glowed like a lamp before a solemn shrine ; 
The firmament was quiet as a dome 
Above the hush of a cathedral nave ; 
The monarch felt the fountains of his heart 
Well up within, and overflow with prayer. 
His mind traversed his tense, terrific past; 
Saw the triumphant present he had won ; 
Beheld the splendid prospect far before. 
And yearned above the fabric he had made. 
"O God," he cried, "my guardian and my hope, 
Look down upon the work that I have wrought, 
A broad-based empire, founded full and firm, 
Built for thy glory in the fear of thee, 
Bastioned about the provinces in tiers, 
And dominated by a dynasty 
126 



XKe Emperor 127 

Far-rooted, virile, fashioned to endure. 
Bless it and have it in thy holy keep, 
And look upon it still benignantly 
Through endless generations yet to be." 

God heard him from his high and awful throne 

Beside the ocean of eternity. 

He eyed the countless ripples of the years 

Wrinkling the shifting and unresting slopes ; 

The huddled wavelets of the centuries 

That seamed the periods along their flanks; 

The serried billows of the ages, ridged 

And huge in their implacable advance, 

Innumerable to their vanishing 

Against the infinite horizon's verge. 

He felt the unrelenting wind of fate, 

Unveering, sempiternal, and the same. 

Push on, undeviating and serene, 

Propelling all before it and below. 

Afar across its booming resonance 

He heard heave and subside in mighty breaths 

The respiration of the tides of time 

Undreaming in their multitudinous sleep. 

The whisper of the cycles as they waked 

Diffused a drone throughout the firmament. 

He heard void hollows of resurgent time 

Obscurely moaning from their darkened depths 

Between the threatening and majestic dunes 

Of bulged, recurrent seons weltering on. 

Amid the tumult, he descried the noise 

Of overdriven eras toppling down, 

Smashing and sliding into ravening spray; 



128 THe E-mperor 

The culminating crash and rending roar 
From the disdainful and tumultuous crests 
Of maddened epochs bursting into foam. 
The present, poised and arching in its leap, 
Crumbled in long battalions, writhed and frayed, 
Of hissing, live, and ever-climbing surf 
That flogged the altering, unsubstantial shore. 
Watching its lapping tongues of swishing spume, 
God looked upon the Emperor and smiled. 

The eager child embraced his father's knees, 
And shouted: "Father, look what I have made! 
I made it all myself and all for you. 
Let us come here and see it every day." 

The Emperor regarded walls and forts. 
Redans and scarps heaped up of oozing sand. 
The rising wind sang strongly toward the coast ; 
A lathering gush of effervescing froth 
Licked toward his feet; and he looked down and 
smiled. 



THE GHOULA. 

BECAUSE my mate did not return, 
And since my little ones must eat, 
I sallied forth alone to learn. 

Myself, to win my children meat. 

Whatever man upon my way, 

Hunter or villager robust, 
I met alone and marked for prey, 

My smile would lull his first distrust ; 

My beauty touched his heart at length, 
And in my form he could not guess 

A hint of that titanic strength 
Which even female ghouls possess. 

At dusk, at sundawn, or at noon 
I lured him from ravine or road 

To where the ruins are. And soon 
We feasted in our dim abode. 

Men's flesh is best. If none came near, 
I caught some bullock, sheep, or goat. 

Or, waiting at a pool the deer. 
Leapt like a panther at its throat. 
129 



13° TKe GHoula 

Three days, and to my younglings' cries 
I brought but pilfered scraps of food. 

I saw the famine in their eyes 
And hunted in no gentle mood. 

Next day above the desert plain 

Our Persian sky arched blue and clear. 

From the lookout where I had lain 
I saw a figure drawing near; 

An Englishman who strayed alone, 
Careless of nomads, ghouls, or spells, 

To beat the waste of sand and stone 
For hares or bustards or gazelles. 

He spoke our homely Persian tongue ; 

I found him nowise hard to fool ; 
And yet, he was so tall and young, 

I wished that he had been a ghoul. 

My hunting had engrossed my mind. 
Since of my mate I was bereft. 

Now, staring through the months behind, 
I felt how lonely I was left. 

. My starved mouth watered at the view 

Of pink cheeks, tender, plump, and nigh. 
And yet it seemed a pity too; 
He looked too comely far to die. 

As. by my side he idly paced. 

Before the ruins we had neared, 

Between two boulders on the waste. 
Some distance off, a doe appeared. 



THe GKoxila 131 

He raised his rifle and took aim. 

Then, as I watched to see her spring, 
He stopped and said: "It seems a shame 

"To kill the pretty, dainty thing." 

It startled me to find this youth, 

So heedless, hale, and lithe of limb, 
Felt for his game the selfsame ruth 

Which I had felt at sight of him. 

She stood and stared before she ran. 

"What good to us that she should roam," 
I said: "Best shoot her while you can. 

We have no meat at all at home." 

His bullet missed. The creature fled. 

He flushed, surprised, chagrined, and vexed. 
Then, smiling cheerily, he said: 

"I may do better with the next. 

"That lean doe was not worth regret, 
You may get meat some other way." 

I answered, with my purpose set, 
"Indeed, I rather think I may." 



How cool the shadowed archway smelt, 

Pleasant and softly lit inside! 
His arm went round my waist. I felt 

My young would not have long to bide. 



132 XKe GKovila 

They cowered huddling in our lair. 

Their pangs I knew they would endure 
In silence, rather than to scare 

Quarry of which I was not sure. 

Inebriated with my charms, 

He held me closely, unaware 
That he was helpless in my arms 

As is a rabbit in a snare. 

Time after time our lips had met; 

His curly head to mine I drew, 
A kiss upon his throat I set — 

And bit the windpipe through and through. 



Firm flesh to eat, clean blood to drink. 
Fitted to make my dear ones thrive. 

And yet, since then, I often think — 
He was so handsome when alive. 

Who knows, but for my darlings' need 
I might have softened, let him go ? 

I find it in my heart indeed 

To wish that he had shot the doe. 



SEP IB 1908 



